


Blooming Again

by MoonWitch96



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Elements of Series Five & Beyond, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, Ignoring Canon Beyond Series Four, M/M, Other, Romance, Science Fiction, Time Travel, Time Travel Without The TARDIS, Time War With Consequences, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-07 09:51:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17363753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonWitch96/pseuds/MoonWitch96
Summary: Rose Tyler dies in Pete's World after a long, valiant fight. But the TARDIS never had wanted this, and she saves her. And now Rose must deal with the throwback of living through it all over again.





	1. Prologue: The Devil's Words

_**** _

_**Prologue:** _

_The Devil's Words_

 

_Rose Tyler swore she died._

_She thought she had lost the never-ending battle of staying with the Doctor, even before she had realized it had been a fight against the multi-Verse, to begin with. Lost him, lost herself in a twist of fate that she had refused to think would ever be possible. She had never thought, even for a second that the words that had come from the devil's lips had meant something else entirely. That the devil spoke in twisted truths. She also hadn't thought that the day she truly died was the day she would be reborn and that she would see the man she loved again._

_She did, however, feel grateful for the truth in the devil's words._


	2. The Wilting Flower: A Goodbye

**The Wilting Flower:**

_A Goodbye_

 

The day Rose Tyler truly dies started as all her days had since Bad Wolf Bay.

With an alarm, blaring, ringing much too loudly in her ears, some annoying series of beeps that never failed to rouse her.

It was incredibly monotonous- reminiscent of her life before the Doctor and the struggle of making ends-meat at a boring job that she had brought in on herself.  _Just as slow and boring_ , she thought, as she slammed her fist on the annoying alarm that woke her up every  _bloody_  morning. She groaned, softly, wishing nothing more than to chuck the thing out one of the large windows of her bedroom and curl into the soft, warm blankets on her bed for a few more hours. The concept of that was ever tempting, every day much harder to dismiss. It wasn't as if she needed the  _money._  But, it wasn't about the money, it wasn't ever about that. As the thing started up again, Rose sighed. Then she threw off her covers, sat up with an ease that came with being twenty-two and completely fit with an alethically demanding job, swinging her well-toned legs so that she could stand, a movement that was a quick flex of her legs.

For a second, all she could focus on was the familiar swirl of her head, her vision blurring alarmingly. It was almost like a head rush- the same sort of dizzying feeling, but much more intense, much more stomach-turning. The young woman's knees buckled as she fell back onto the large bed that Pete insisted she had. It always felt like it was too much. The bed was  _empty,_ and Rose felt that keenly as she hit the mattress in an ungainly sprawl.

She was used to a full-twin bed, and before that, a cramped twin since she was seventeen, and the empty space was so much more  _stark._ Towards the end, with the Doctor, she had hardly slept alone. It had been the comfort of being so close friends- and she thinks sometimes the pretext of just wishing to be in the same space as each other. The space around her on both sides was colder than she had ever thought a bed had the right to be, and every night she found herself huddling in a small ball, in the center of the too big bed _. Sometimes my hand reaches out, searching for another that will never be there._

For a second, all Rose could do was stare at the ceiling, her head spinning and sour bile rising up in her throat.

The constellations of far-off galaxies, the ones she could remember from her adventures in her original universe, stared down at her in the daft glow-in-the-dark stickers. Some were from what was visible on Earth, the big dipper, the Hunter Orion, but others were from places in space no human had ever seen in her era. The great Beauty of the Sa planet, the Face of Boe of New Earth. All dotted her expansive, navy painted ceiling. It had been a whim. She had seen them in a shop one day when she had been making a supply run for a mission. She had seen them her way to the check out counter, remembered a childhood of sitting down on the estate rooftops trying to see through the pollution and failing beyond the brightest of stars. She remembered stickying similar things on her bedroom ceiling as a child, and not quite being able to take them down when she had come back after her ill-fated year with Jimmy. Something about those things has eased something in her heart then, and she had hoped for the same result when she had purchased all of the ones she could find in the shop that day.

But they were just another memory.

She blinked away the figurative 'stars' that came from standing, taking deep, slow breathes to calm the intense pain that coursed through all of her nerves. It was like a wildfire that started in her head and raced through all of her body until it reached the very tips of her fingers and toes. It came in waves, one after another, scorching her through and through. After a few seconds, she gingerly brought herself to rest on her elbows, fighting back the sudden pounding of her head, and the rising feeling of nausea in her stomach. Each movement is another flair of pain. She bite it all down with a practiced grimace.

_Come on, get it together Tyler._

It was not the first time the action of getting out of bed had caused this sort of reaction. She also wasn't all that surprised when she felt a faint trickle of something abnormal cold seep onto her upper lip. She reached for the tissue pack she had placed underneath her pillow for this very reason. She gently dabbed at her upper lip, licking her large lips and ignoring how the feel of blood made her stomach turn with a stronger force. Or the faint worry at the fact that the liquid felt ice-cold, _too cold_  to be normal. It was something that occurred daily, so Rose hardly batted an eyelash as she stood again. She took more even breathes, steadying herself. It was almost a ritual at this point, failing to get up each morning.

_Sometimes, I wonder if I'll stop being able to get up at all._

Rose sighed at her pessimistic thought, shaking her head slowly, not wanting to make herself dizzier than she already was.  _Come on, Tyler, getting moving. One step at a time._  She stuffed her nose without ceremony, and walked calmly to her loo, stretching her highly sore muscles with some care, ignoring how pulling them taunt made her wince. It was a necessary pain that she endured, and she was not going to collapse again. _That was limited to only once a day after all._ She showered quickly and without lingering, doing the motions of getting herself clean, knowing that she had to get into work. She could have a bubble bath when she came home if she so chose...  _If I had the energy,_ she thought slightly bitterly as she toweled. She dressed in dark, comfortable clothes, taciturn pants that were stretchy and flexible, a form-fitting vest that moved as she did with little resistance and a blue- _TARDIS blue_ \- jacket as the only pop of color. When she was twisting her long hair into a ponytail, Rose suddenly caught a glance of her reflection.

She stared at the woman in the mirror, understanding that the being in the mirror  _was_  a woman, something she wouldn't have thought just before she met the Doctor.  _Just a girl, the chav from the estates with thrown away potential in spades. The woman in the mirror looked too young_ , she thought, carefully touching the vibrant purple bags underneath her eyes. Too young to have lived through everything she had. It felt like she should an old woman- bent, weathered with the events of Time and Space written in every crease, every furrow of old skin. But appearances were so deceiving. Every one of her features were bright, (if a little on the pale side) and sharp and fresh. Glowing with youth and what she knew with a little vanity was beauty. She had grown away from the last traces of her baby fat. She had grown into her strong jawline and her sharp cheekbones, her full lips, and large eyes. Her body was all curves and lean muscle, careful and compact package. She was beautiful, she knew, not in a sense of self-grandiose or ego( _some of that_ ), but in a more matter-of-fact way. A beautiful strong woman of twenty-two. Small differences from her body of before the Doctor, but not enough for most people to note the differences between then and now.

The woman in the mirror had hardly changed since that fateful day in which he had told her to run. It was a funny thing, she had hardly changed physically, but she  _saw_ herself so differently. Held herself so differently than she had at nineteen. And that made such a bloody difference.

 _But not my eye_ s, she thought. Oh, no, her hazel eyes were old and as tired as the bags beneath them implied. If not older, and sometimes when she stared into her own eyes, Rose swore she could catch a flash of gold lingering in their depths. A hint of a song in her head. But, every time she checked again, the steady iris did not glow or even hint at her strange past. At her ill-fated look into the Heart of the TARDIS. She did not have a physical change to prove that she had been altered by her time with the Doctor.

But she had her memories- her precious moments of running, hopping, and the feel of his fingertips between her own- and she had her perspective of the multiverse.

The key to the TARDIS was also still around her neck, as it  _always_  would be. She touched softly, kissing the warm metal as she did every day. She swore, as the day before, and the day before that, the small key gave off a small spark of warmth as it touched her lips. Just slightly. Weaker than what it had been in her memories _(before it had felt like an electric shock, but more pleasant, more like a small trill in the back of her head)._  But that spark was enough, sometimes the only thing that felt warm to her in her entire day, a soft note in her mind that seemed so frail in what had been musical constant in her head due to the TARDIS.

She settled the key securely between her breasts and quickly set to priming her face with effective swipes of her fingertips. She quickly did her makeup, the one remnant from her days as an estate girl that she carried with her. However, as she applied the minimalist amount of foundation, Rose knew she had changed in style. Gone was the heavy and glammed up version of Rose Tyler, the person, who admitted to herself now, that had been a chav. In her place was a softer, smokier version of Rose. The one who had matured and grown slightly bitter in the wake of everything. Her make-up was dark, it was subtle, and more war-paint than true make-up. A daring slash of eyeliner that swung up in a flare, neutral tones of nude and brown to emphasize her old eyes. No lipstick, no gloss, just functional chapstick that was banana flavored because she was sentimental. She  _looked_ dangerous, which was the whole point, the type of woman who would smile as she ate you up.

With a small wink to herself, she left the bathroom semi-pleased with her appearance.

She walked down the many flights of stairs, ignoring the yapping dog that shared her name as it rushed to nip at her red trainers. Rose-the-dog did not like her. A  _lot_ of things in Pete's World held a distinct dislike for her. She felt a tad attacked- Mickey and her Mum got along just fine with all the woodland creatures, making Rose feel a bit like an evil witch in comparison. It was not her fault and more of a recent phenomenon. Last time she was here, the dog had barely glanced in her direction. Now the thing and several other animals constantly squawked, screamed or otherwise scattered away whenever she came by. It was why she wasn't allowed on Forest Opps- she always gave away their position.

The last time she had startled a squirrel to try and gnaw her face off, Pete had put a foot down.

"Bugger off," she growled at the little dog, nudging Rose the dog a bit with the tip of her shoes. The thing gave her trainer one last nip before it scampered off. It was not a true kick, just a nudge. But the dog still was yapping the entire way as it ran, tail between her legs.

Her mother, as always, was in the kitchen, talking excitedly into her headset to some friend or other she had made. Her mother wasn't one to lose her stride and had walked with her head and chin up upon her entrance to a parallel world. Her place as Pete's wife had been reasserted with a quick, if lavish ceremony in the same church they had married in the first time around, with Rose serving as maid of honor to the semi-confused audience of Pete's World. But unlike their own World, Pete's World, due to the recent havoc of the Cybermen, had a better understanding of the stranger and unusual Universe(multi-as it turned out) they lived in. The appearance of a parallel Jackie Tyler, her daughter, and a parallel Mickey(not Rickey) Smith, the world had accepted them with open arms. Her parents' honeymoon had been just a weekend, for Pete was an important man in this world, and her mother wasn't one to make a big fuss, especially since she had  _'A lifetime to spend my life with him, don't need a big thin' of it'_.

Her mum's stomach was ripe and round with child, and she all but glowed with happiness as she moved her arms expressively about. Rose, despite the pounding and swirling of her head, found herself smiling at the sight of her lovely mum. So...  _Happy._  It wasn't that Jackie Tyler had been unhappy back in their world. But she hadn't quite happy either. It was a difference that Rose noticed each time she looked at this world's Pete, the lightness and ease in her eyes she had never seen growing up.

It was one of the few good things Rose took comfort in, one of the few things that reminded Rose that there was hope. It had taken twenty years for her mum to get her dad back...

Rose would wait that and more.

She got herself a quick breakfast, feeling the bile rise slightly in her throat as she forced down the simple meal of dry toast and eggs. The toast somewhat settled her stomach but scratched her throat. The eggs were a pain and she almost threw them up, but she knew she needed the protein. So she shoved them in quick and tried not to taste them. She tried to ignore the pounding of her head or the slight but unpleasant tingling that was all over her.

"Rose love, you goin' in today? "asked her mother after a moment, hanging up the phone with a soft snap of her fingers. She hid her displeased frown behind her tea mug, a rough thing roughly the size of her face. Her mum had taken one look of the delicate saucers and cups that her counterpart had favored, rolled her eyes and bought herself a cheap ceramic thing that was more bowl than a cup, "Why don' you take a day off? Have a full day planned today, and I would love you to come with."

"Yeah, mum, 'M goin' in. Big mission planned for today. Too dangerous to be left alone, Dad and Micks are on it," said Rose, accepting the mug of tea when her mother offered it. She sipped the familiar brew, noting with some amusement that it tasted... Slightly off, as it always did.

Mickey, her mum and herself had always mentioned it to Pete, who laughed it off, that everything in this world felt slightly off, taste-wise. It was, after all, not an alternate world but a parallel one. Things sort of lined up, but other things shifted, alternated slightly in a way that was very noticeable to the three of them. Taste was one of the more obvious things: Cinnamon was a tad spicier bit more like paprika than the sweeter stuff they were used too, and kiwis were fairly sour, like lemons. _Just little things_  mused Rose, carefully taking out her phone and scrolling down as she checked the news. It was a high-tech touch screen affair as her old phone flip-phone was vital as a multi-galaxy contact device with the jiggory pokery the Doctor had placed on it, so long ago. Rose had sacrificed it early on in her determination to defend this Earth.

Her mother sighed heavily, eying her nondescript clothing with slight distaste. Rose sincerely hoped she wouldn't start trying to convince her to wear the bright pastel colors of before. She enjoyed what she wore, never mind the fact that her mum claimed it was too much like the first Doctor that they had met. It was similar in the nature of being practical and easy to move in, but it never extended beyond his old habit of darker colors. Rose was sentimental, but it wasn't as if she was going  _that_ far into trying to follow the same life she had with the Doctor. She had enough issues without dressing like the man.

"I don't know why you insist on doing all those insane things, running after aliens, getting stuck in time loops. I mean, I understand that you miss the adventures you had with-" her mother broke off, lips pinching shut into a thin line. Harsh, so fierce the skin around her lips turned white.

Rose sighed as her mother looked at her as if she would explode. It was almost comical really, how she looked, her lips pinched and her eyes wide with fright. Almost. It would have been, in retrospect, if she wasn't so bloody annoyed about it.

"You can speak about the Doctor you know. It doesn't bother me," she said quietly, feeling her fists clench.

_You're a bad liar, Tyler._

She felt a stab of small pain each time the Doctor was mentioned, even by mistake, as he often was. But not hearing about him at all, and trying to ignore the fact that he existed (as her family was prone to do) made the fact that he wasn't there, nor could ever be, so much more predominant. Made him seem like he was dead, and she was his unstable widow.  _Wasn't like that. Could've been, got so close, but we never took that leap. He was a coward. But then, so was I. It takes two to dance, and we were **both** too scared to take the steps._ Her mother looked on at her with pinched lips, as if she had eaten a kiwi or sucked on a lemon from their old universe. She touched her rounded stomach as was her nervous habit, her fingertips caressing her unborn sibling with care. Something about that protective act made it worse. Made Rose's heartache.

"Rose, its been nearly a year. I understand that you loved the man, but you have to move on... I worry for you," she said plainly and honestly. Her eyes looked at her hopefully, even with pity, but no understanding.

Rose felt that was worse. The lack of understanding. The lack of  _trying_  to understand. Jackie had loved the Doctor- but she had never understood him or Rose, or their relationship. It was partially Rose's fault, she  _knew_ that. But she tried to make it up. Tried to make her mother understand now that she could and wanted too. But her mum was too content and  _happy_ to understand.

Some part of Rose would always hurt because of it.

"You never moved on from Dad," she said simply, standing up and ignoring the wave of dizziness that took her.  _Get a grip, Tyler._ Her mother's face paled, and Rose knew she had given her mother a low blow, below the belt and then some, "Near nineteen years, you loved him. Missed him. Couldn't let him go. How could you ask me to do what you couldn't?"

Her mum could not, and did not say a word as she stormed out, and that was all Rose wanted.

_**~BW~DW~BW~DW~BW~** _

Rose swore quietly as Mickey fell down next to her, clutching his shoulder as blood dripped between his fingertips. She sighed, watching his face carefully, the paleness and sweat that dripped down his brow. His wounded arm held his gun, a quick pistol that ran on laser rather than bullets. Her childhood friend hissed through his teeth, trying to grin at her. It was weak at best, and at worse, looked like he was trying to bit her face off. She quickly took out a small gaze out of the pouch strapped to her back and swatted his hand away to wrap up his shoulder.

"C'mon, move your fat fingers. You're bleedin' all over your nice gloves. I bought you those."

"You never bring a bleeding gun and you never get hurt," he hissed back, giving her a weak glare as she tore at his thick and reinforced uniform.

Rose lifted a single brow as she prodded his shoulder and he gave out a low, restrained moan, obviously in pain.

"I'm just too good," she replied, eying the wound. It was two inches thick, an inch deep and looked inflamed. Not a burn, but a deep cut, thankfully the target did not have a laser gun, but rather a self-defense mechanism that involved nasty barbs that dissolved into the flesh. She saw a bit of his collarbone, peaking through the red muscle and the aftermath of the barb, a sticky blue liquid.

At nineteen she would have gagged at the very least at the sight. At twenty-two, she only brought out a device, to check for poison and possible infection. Luckily there was none of the first, so she dressed it quickly and efficiently after she sprayed a potent spray.

Mickey snorted, snatching his gun from the useless hand to his good arm.

"Well Doctor, tell me, will I live?" he asked. He froze as he finished speaking, eyes looking warily at her.

Rose laughed at his expression.

"Well Mickey the Idiot, I say you will," she said, and rocked back on her heels, tilting her head to the side and listening to the ongoing battle. When she heard nothing, she frowned.

Her earpiece suddenly went off with a soft ring, and she placed her hand to her ear to receive it.

"Gemini to Valiant, Gemini to Valiant," said her father's voice and she breathed a sigh of relief, "Lost contact with the fugitive. Last seen with you two on their tail, report."

"Valiant to Gemini. The Mouse is down with an injured shoulder. Permission to engage alien alone?" she asked halfheartedly as she brought her radio to her mouth. It wasn't as if she needed permission really, or that she would follow orders that well. Something about the Doctor had made her a tad against authority.

Or maybe it started when she was banished by Queen Victoria from England before she was even born.

Mickey looked at her with a frown.

"I hate our code names. I get The Mouse while you get bloody Valiant. How fair is that?" he whined childishly, pouting. Rose only gave him a look, her lips twitching upwards.

If anything had survived in her childhood friend's transformation into the competent, militant man across from her, it was the fact that he could still be a big baby.

"Gemini to Valiant, negative on the self-engaged. Don't you dare young lady," came Pete's hissed reply.

Rose closed her radio, tossing it to Mickey.

"Stay here Micks," she looked at him, eyes firm.

"Valiant, you sure?"

"I'll be fine. You actually got a couple shots in before they skewered you. You lost a lot of blood and should take a moment to take a breath."

"You got this?"

"You know it, Mickey Mouse."

He gave her nod.

"Right. Be careful."

Rose gave a nod in return and ignored Mickey's gesture to take his sidearm. With a wink and laughing softly as his hissed protest, she took off into the shadows where the alien had run off. She knew he couldn't follow that easily. Her only luck was that the alien was injured, even more so than Mickey. She found it after only about ten minutes. Following a blue trail of what she suspected worked as its blood. It lay sinking by the sewer water's edge, nearly submerged into the smut-filled water, but clinging desperately to the walkway. It stared at her with blind, milky eyes, which blinked in unison. All three were pinned on her approaching from, and Rose tried to ignore the discomfort that its gaze brought. Milky eyes did not equally blindness, as it tracked her movements too precisely or they worked on a different frequency that she didn't quite recognize. She was not an encyclopedia of Alien Races, despite everyone's assumption. She had only spent so much with the Doctor, and the parallel world had enough differences that the little knowledge she had was not always right.

It did look a bit like a squid, though. Pale skin, blue-tinted with black spots, tentacles and all. Three eyes, and a specific defense mechanism in the barbs. It shouldn't take too much back and forth from her contacts in space to identify it.

"This is a level seven planet, barely out of the sixth stage. You do understand that you have violated the laws of the Shadow Proclamation?" she said firmly. She ignored the sudden trickle of blood she felt on her upper lip, or how suddenly she had to use the walls to hold herself up. The thing on the water's edge gave a harsh laugh as she stumbled into the wall. It was deep and with a masculine edge. It lifted a weak, curling tentacle towards her, asking for help.

Pushing off the wall, she went to kneel in front of what she suspected was a him, very ready to give it. She ignored the dizziness. She ignored how her vision filled with stars. She just reached out her arms to assist.

"Oh, the Valiant child knows the words," he said, and Rose felt a chill go down her spine. She said nothing, only reached out both arms again, in a peaceful gesture, despite the fear that curled in her stomach.

He looked at her with those damn eyes, as if he could look straight through her.

"Lost little wolf, what are you doing here?" he asked, gently in his harsh voice. It was gravely, a deepness that reverted in her mind. It took her a second to realize it was a combination of vocal and mental vibrations. He was a telepath.

He wound his tentacles around her outstretched arms in a rapid, sudden gesture, and pulled himself out of the water. Rose wished to struggle against his hold, but the alien's grip was so weak, and gentle that she didn't dare. Instead, she carefully pulled him out, feeling sorrowful as one of his many feelers touched the side of her face. She reached a hand to touch it gently, somehow feeling its life wane.  _Was he projecting?_  She curled her legs around it, sitting on her backside and allowing it to rest in her crossed legs. Her blood, red, dripped onto his form and he hardly flinched.

"Saving you," she lied softly.

"Oh, Bad Wolf. Thank you for the kind lie. I must warn you. The battle that you have fought to this day will end now- And you will _lose,_ " he said in a kind, rueful voice. He sounded completely heartbroken.

Rose felt the sting of tears begin as it stroked her face.

"What do you mean?" she whispered, "You're the one dying in my arms. I still got some fight left in me."

He gave a small, raspy chuckle.

"Valiant child of another universe, that who still is the wolf that burns like the sun, I wish you all the luck in the space and time," he said, "Funny. I was always a bad hat at seeing time-lines. But I guess if someone shines as bright as you, it takes a true blind person to miss them."

"Come on, you're fine. You can even shoot at me some more."

"Sweet Valliant child. I hope we meet again."

He fell limp in her arms. Rose could only let a few tears escape before the searing pain overtook her. She dropped the alien's body and felt faint as her cheek slammed against the concrete of walkway. It was hard to tell, really, as she was spasming too hard to really focus on much. She tried to keep her teeth from clench, worried over bitting her tongue off, but it was so  _hard._  Over time, the pain in her had made her readily accept it, here in Pete's World. But her high pain tolerance had never prepared her for  _this_. She let out a scream that could shatter glass, and then she was screaming so loud she went hoarse until she couldn't scream at all. Only let out breathless sobs.

It was as if she was both on fire, and freezing. As if _frozen lightning_  was touching on _every_  single nerve.

The devil's words haunted her then, and she knew, just as the alien had said, that she would lose the battle that had begun the second she had been trapped in Pete's world. The battle that had raged within her body, rejecting the very air of Pete's world, rejecting the very state of being there. Rose felt fear like never before then, as she shook and screamed on the walkway of the sewer, she knew then that she was going to die.

_I never saw him again. I wanted to see him one more time._

She forces those thoughts down. Only thought of the Doctor, everything about him, everything that had frustrated and infatuated her. She brought him to mind, filled herself with the concept of him. And with him, the fear faded away as if it had never existed. She thought of his mad ways, how he would crone sweet nothings to the TARDIS when he was alone. Of how he would cry every time he would read Harry Potter. Of his damn habit of licking things, of being nosey and gallivanting into danger without a thought of his own safety. Of his laughter, of his eyes. Of the dark, warm ones that had looked at her with such agony in Bad Wolf Bay, of the piercing blue ones that had first captured her. She thought of his hand in her's, the cool perfect hand of both versions of her Doctor, and she thought of the way she fell so utterly and completely in love with him. She loved, loved, her Doctor, and even as she laid dying, alone in another universe, Rose could not bring herself to regret that fact that being with him had brought her to this point. She thought only of him as each wave of agony and fire coursed through her.

She barely registered when Mickey found her, or the garbled words he screamed into his radio. All she saw was his lips moving, his pale face a blur as he called out to her in a muffled voice too far away for her to hear.  _Oh Micks, I'm so sorry. I was horrible to you, and all you ever did was love me._ She hardly felt it as he lifted her up into his strong arms, despite his injured shoulder. She saw the light of the sun, bright and beautiful and so painful to her.  _I get to see the sun one last time, just like that Dalek._  When she saw fluorescent lights flash overhead, it took her a moment and looking at the various people dressed in scrubs and masks above her to registered the fact that she was in a hospital.  _When?_  Pete's and Mickey's grief-stricken faces were speaking to her, and the words they said were lost, and she could only stare at their mouths as they opened and closed with a disconnected regret.

_I love you. Both of you. Pete, you were my dad. Thank you._

It was then that she saw it. Through her own haze of pain, she saw the misty figure of gold. It commanded the hallway, faintly in the shape of a woman, stalking after the moving gurney with animalistic grace. The hands of the figures reaching for her as it followed them. For a wild second, her addled mind thought the approaching figure was made of nanogenes. It looked just like the micro-robots. It moved, however, like a person, intent on reaching her. Just seeing the figure was enough to bring the world beyond her into focus. With a jolt, her vision cleared. She could hear, and the doctors around her were panicked.

"Her heart is starting to stop! It can't handle the stress of whatever the Alien hit her with!" said one Doctor, stricken as she touched the side of her face. Her dark eyes looked at her, wide and pleading.

_No. That's not right-_

Rose tried to speak, registering the fact over her mouth was an oxygen mask. Tried, but all that came from her weak vocal cords was a weak gurgle.

_Is there a tube down my throat?!_

"Doctor Jones, we're losing her-" screamed a nurse.

"We will not!" snapped the Doctor, making soothing motions on Rose's face, "Come on, you are the strongest member of Torchwood, just hold a little longer until we can get you-".

"What the hell is happening to her?!" she heard her mother's voice sounded out.

"Come on Agent Tyler, your stronger than this!" said the woman, dark eyes fierce.

But the misty figure of gold touched Rose's hand, and the woman Doctor Jones, the nurses, the other doctors, Mickey, Pete, and her mother's wailing voice faded away into nothing but shadows and warmth.

_**~BW~DW~BW~DW~BW~** _

Rose woke up on a very familiar jump seat.

Her eyes fluttered. The first thing she registered was the muted glow of the TARDIS' console room. She blinked, rapidly, breath coming in a gasp as she sat up, with her heart galloping within her chest. Her pain was gone. The air tasted of apple grass, and for what felt like the first time in a long time, she felt... Warm. And safe.

_I'm home. I'm HOME!_

She took another breath, shaky and in awed happiness.

She knew that she was dead.

But she was  _home._

After the agony of the last year of her life, she was dead. But she was home. Her only regrets were that her relationships with her family had never quite healed since the Doctor had come into their lives due to her mishandling of the situation and that she had never seen the Doctor again in life. But after every waking moment of fighting against the weight of Pete's world, Rose Tyler, the valiant child, and the Bad Wolf felt peace for the first time in a long time.

" _My Wolf,_ " the voice was a song. A sweet, warm and beautiful song that filled every part of Rose.

She turned, blinking. The figure of golden light nearly blinded her. She could not see the features of the woman, only the outline of her form against the golden light. Rose felt nothing but warmth, and peace at the figure's presence. It filed her every pore and reached her every nerve. She knew this woman, but for the life of her(or death of her?), she could not remember who she was.

"Who are you?" she asked.

She felt a happy hum course through her. Not just in the general air, but  _through_ her.

" _I am the one whose's heart you have looked into._ "

Rose stared.

"TARDIS?" she asked, and she felt another happy hum of the song enter her as the figure reached out to clasp her hand.

" _Oh, my dear, dear Bad Wolf, how you have fought for the sake of seeing my Thief again,_ " she whispered, her other hand reaching to touch her face.

Rose felt the heat of the tears before they fell, and she smiled tiredly, with a little bitterness entering her.

"If your Thief is my Doctor, then I'm sorry to say that I fought for nothing."

The TARDIS hummed softly in that singing speech of her's and tightened her grip on Rose's hand.

" _Do not speak so early my Wolf. I can still fix this... You will only have to trust me._ " said the TARDIS, eagerly, with much urgency. She sounded so hopeful and so happy that Rose dared hope herself.

_I haven't felt hope in a long time._

"But I already trust you."

The TARDIS laughed. And it was one of the most beautiful things that Rose had ever heard.

" _Then go to him... Go to my Thief and me, and fix the mess that got us to this point in the first place... Be warned that not everyone can be saved my noble, Bad Wolf. But you will see this in time,_ " sang out the TARDIS.

She leaned down and kissed her forehead, softly.

Rose felt nothing but warmth, and then she felt nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: 8 September 2019


	3. Rose: The Past Is Another Country

**Rose:**

_The Past Is Another Country_

Rose Tyler woke up on the floor.

It was cold, hard and smooth against her cheek.  _ _The walkway of the sewer? But we were in the older part of the system. Where it was brick-__ Her eyes fluttered, lips parting sharply as she groaned. Her head felt strange- not quite a headache in sensation- but  _not_  pleasant. It felt as if she had hundreds of buzzing insects going across it, a tingling sensation that was disorienting. She rolled on her stomach, mindful of the direction of the putrid water she knew was to the left of her. She opened her eyes to not the semi-darkness she expected but got instead mute lighting. Taciturn and yellow-tinted. Industrial quality, serviceable and the type of lighting she knew was typical to underground settings of a more populous variety than most sewers. She frowned, pressing her palms against the floor. Instead of the roughness of brick, again, she felt the polished smoothness of treated and polished concrete.

_That's not quite right. On the floor, no restraints, different location. Conclusion- teleportation or some sort of drug that knocked me out. Only reasonable explanations. Someone who has a real pair of bollocks to kidnap an active agent during a mission. Let alone this agent._

It wasn't just her mind. Her body felt off. Numb, and tingly. As if her entire body had fallen asleep,  _pins and needles_. It was almost painful. But more uncomfortable than anything else compared to the usual state of her body. She gingerly sat up, pushing strongly against the concrete, swinging her torso upwards. She waited for her customary dizziness, for the pain to flare up, but she felt nothing beyond the sensation of pins and needles.

Blinking, Rose shook her head, hand coming up to touch her forehead, eyes closing for a moment.

_Okay, be calm, Tyler. Get your bearings first before you kick whose ever arse thought it was a good idea to teleport **Agent Tyler**  of Torchwood without her constant._

Checking quickly for blood or any external injury, she was rather relieved to feel nothing, just the sensation of the pins and needles. Mild, really, in comparison to the usual state of her body, so much so that she could ignore it easily opens her eyes carefully before she swung herself up in a careful move so that she was in a crouching position, legs ready to launch her at someone or something if she needed it. It was a common movement, reliant on her flexible and strong leg muscles. She stumbled, falling forward, legs flaring with what she thought may have been pain. It was as if she was pushing her usually reliable muscle too far.

_What?_

Frowning, Rose opted to shift herself back into position, gritting her teeth as her legs protested the movement. Her thighs and hamstrings burned in the position, trembling with the effort. Rose only shook her head and focused on her surroundings. She tensed as she saw, in the dim light, the silhouettes of people around her. Surrounding her.  _B_ o _xing me in._  Rose launched herself to her feet, baring her teeth as she spread out her feet parallel to each other, shifting her center of gravity, lifting her fists in front of her. A bag slung across her body moved violently with the movement, smacking against her hip, making her blink as all of her equipment was strapped to her to prevent such a distraction. It took her a moment to realize, that her spine was aligned slightly wrong in her stance. It left her right side more open, uneven position that any fighter worth their salt could use to their advantage to bring her down. Even her fists were positioned wrong, a little too low, her wrists tilted to the side and she quickly removed her thumb from inside her clenched fingers. She hadn't made a rookie mistake like that since Jack had forced her to learn how to throw a decent punch instead of a slap.

_"You'll break your thumb like that. And keep your wrists straight, you could hurt it if you punch with it cocked that way!"_

But her body had moved on instinct, following her mind's direction in a way that did not come with her training with her martial arts instructor at Torchwood, with Jack's careful instructions.

_Something's wrong with me._

That was when Rose caught sight of her sleeve, faint as she could see it in the low light. She was wearing a hoody that was hot pink, and a small little tank cami with lace against her breasts, pastel pink and striking against her suddenly tanner skin. She was in jeans, and while that wasn't strange in itself, she hadn't worn jeans with such wide bottoms since she had landed in Pete's World, skinny was the fashion there and she had grown attached. It was pale, not quite acid wash but close enough. The bag, across her shoulders, was one that she hadn't seen in nearly two years, a pale blue patchwork thing that she had knicked from her mum. She had lost in somewhere in the bowels of the TARDIS's Wardrobe room.

" _Everyone loses something, Rose. Sarah Jane lost a hat that she was quite fond of.'"_

Rose blinked, moving her head to feel sliver, hoop earrings weighing down her ears. She had lost said earrings a while back, when she had needed something to complete a circuit in some device that was the key to taking down an alien's mad plot to tossing the Earth into its star, Sol ( _not the Sun, Pete had given her such a confused look when she had referred it as such)_. They had been melted beyond repair in the electric discharge of the device, and she had never really had had the heart to replace them. They had belonged to her mum, one of the few gifts from her dad in life before his passing that she had given to Rose on her eighteenth birthday, just before she had met the Doctor. Besides, most, if not all, of the metal from Pete's word tended to irritate her skin, with the exception of their medical-grade steel.

"What!?" she muttered, fingering the hoop on her left ear.

_Okay, Why the hell am I dressed like this- And- AND What the hell is wrong with my body!?_

Rose stared at her stomach as if it had betrayed her. Careful, with mindful fingers, she pressed against her reasonably flat stomach. But it was lacking the tautness that came with her serious core routine. It was flat but soft. Checking her arms, she noticed that though reasonably skinny, they too had lost significant muscle mass. She felt... Delicate.

"Oh god," she whispered, feeling her way around herself, checking her legs, seeing the bleached blonde strands of hair against her shoulders "What did they do to me?!"

More lights suddenly turned on, flickering to life. Rose lifted her head, eyes wide as the sight of countless store dummies met her gaze. All Rose could really do was gape in surprise. They approached with stiff movements and she very nearly shrieked. She noted with certainty that she was in shock because she wasn't really the shrieking type anymore. But she had been then.  _It's the Autons, the Nestance Consciousness. This... This is when I met the Doctor for the first time._

"Stop! This is cruel and you know it!" she called out to  _whoever had done this to her, made her relive her memories, some sort of mind scan to replicate this to such detail_ , backing away carefully. She didn't notice how close to the wall she was and swore when she felt the pipes of the wall against her back, "Under Article Two Zero Five of the Shadow Proclamation, it is prohibited to interfere with a sentient creature's mind without expression permission!"

For a wild moment, Rose could only stare at what she suddenly knew were Autons coming at her in a mock replay of the instance where she had first met the Doctor. Then she readied herself, thinking that she was going bloody  _murder whoever had done this to her_ in several, gruesome ways. She was Rose Tyler- The Valient of Torchwood, the  _Big Bad Wolf_ and she was not going to be caught cowering against the wall like she was nineteen again. She ignored the warm heat that stung her eyes, because at the moment, even if these things were meant to scare and remind her, she was not going to start blubbering. She could have a good cry about the Doctor after she dealt with this mess.  _I am calling a direct arrest request against whoever has the-_ When the nearest Auton moved to strike her, Rose automatically placed one of her hands down and behind her back while she made her stance wider again, bringing one arm up to block the blow. She hadn't expected for someone to grasp her lowered hand in a gentle, familiar hold. No, she hadn't expected at all for the slightly cool, calloused hand that she knew so well-

She looked up wildly, not quite believing what her mind told her as those damned piercing blue eyes met her hazel ones.

For a singular moment, it was as if everything was okay.  _Doctor._  For one moment she felt the world whirling beneath her feet. She felt the Earth spinning around the sun at a speed that took her breath away. She was falling with him, just for that second and it was all she could do was stare into his eyes and allow the sensation to wash over her.

_Oh, why did it have to be this memory?_

He said one word. Just one word...

He said...

"Run."

He then proceeded to pull her away from the Auton just as it struck downwards, and Rose wanted to hit herself for forgetting that they could be so strong as it broke the pipe in place of breaking her arm. Rose then ran with the Doctor, more readily than she had last time, her mind whirling and running at breakneck speed.  _This could not be_   _happening,_ she thought. But it was, and her first Doctor hurried her along into the service lift of Hendrick's basement. She was breathing heavily, chest heaving, eyes wide as she watched the Doctor, run into the lift behind her. In all of his tall, broad shoulders, jumper and leather jacket glory. Nearly shaved head, strong features that could have been carved from stone,  _his ears._  The doors were closing, but the lead Auton of the pack reached for them, and the Doctor tried to tug its arm off. Rose, as if on autopilot reached over to help him, and with their combined strength the arm popped off without nearly as much struggle as she remembered. The doors closed, and Rose felt her chest heave with the effort of the relatively light run and their fight with the arm. It was as if she was nineteen again, and her body was already winded. It was somewhat ridiculous that she had been so unfit, even in a projection of her memory!

"Thanks," said the Doctor, examining the arm with care with the interest, rubbing his strong, pointed chin.

Rose stared. Couldn't help  _but_ stare.

"You're welcome," she said, and even to herself, she sounded both dazed and uncertain. The Doctor looked up from the arm and gave her a measuring look that lasted for fifteen seconds(she had counted) before he threw the arm at her, and turned away to rummage into his leather jacket.

She caught it with ease and nearly dropped it as she remembered that it had almost crushed her face in the past. Gingerly, she held it with the loses of grips, her spare hand clenching, and closing again in agitation.

Rose's first thought then, as she looked at the Doctor was, _I_ **missed** _that daft jacket_. It was beautiful and tough, much like the version of the man she had first met. The next was that _his ears weren't nearly as big as I remembered them to be_. Still large, but not as ridiculous as his next incarnation would claim they were. The thought after that was,  _I am going completely mad, and this was all just one enormous, rather cruel projection that was using my memories, my best memories, against me._  Whoever was doing this was an expert, a perfect manipulator of the mind.

_And I won't need the Shadow Proclamation to do my dirty work. I'm taking them apart with my bare hands._

"I... Those weren't a clever trick were they?" she asked, for a lack of a better thing to say. The silence felt too heavy, her mind, still  _buzzing_  whirling with possible ways to break whatever this was.

_Mental projection, or true blue holographic projection that I am physically in? My perceptions have me feeling as if my body is back to it once was at my first meeting with the Doctor. So unless this is_ **very** _sophisticated, the first is more likely. If true, I can break it the easiest. If not, I can still break it. Even drawing from my memories, this can't be_ **perfect.** _Memories degrade over time, change and alter due to a myriad of factors._

_**This will not keep me trapped**._

Despite her determination, she couldn't deny that there was a strange aching in her for just leaving things as they were, to let this play out. She felt pathetic, looking at the collection of her memory, the man she loved pulled straight from her mind in front of her. The Doctor was just a foot or so away, and it took all her will power not to launch herself at him and drag his thin lips to her's.  _You'll only hurt yourself more if you let this run its course. It's not him. Not him, just a memory. Just take this to remember him better._  So instead of snogging him, she took the time to take him in, from his wonderful leather jacket to his noticeably non-conversed feet. Boots, serviceable and dark jeans, a dark-colored jumper. He looked a soldier, straight shoulders, sharp features, and a serious expression as he rummaged through his jacket.  _I missed this you,_  she thought, tears threatening to fall from her eyes. She had always missed this him, much as she had loved the one that came after him.  _Same man, same man but things changed. And as I loved your next body part of me would always remember bits of this body._ This man had been the one to lure her into his mad life. And it was in this version that she had begun to fall in love with, the next had only cemented the fact that she had fallen so madly in love with an alien.

He looked at her, curious, eyes distant. None of the warmth. None of the affection that they had built in the course of their relationship.

The warm and wetness of her tears were on the very edge of her lashes, but she held back the silly tears with sheer willpower. Even in whatever she was in, she couldn't show him how much she had died inside since she had become stuck in Pete's world. How just the sight of him, so far away from her, hurt.

"No, they weren't," he said pleasantly, still rummaging in his jacket. She wondered absently if he was building the bomb in there or looking for it.

When he stopped rummaging, and crossed his arms, and smiled pleasantly at her. She blinked, rapidly, breathing deep through her nose before she lifted her chin as she unconsciously smiled back at him. Her heart pounded, as if she was young again, experiencing a crush in the schoolyard instead of a woman long grown. Even if this was a horrible cage of her reliving her memories, it was, to quote the current man across from her,  _fantastic_.

But then she remembered what had brought her to the basement in the first place back then, so long ago, and she felt a flash of guilt.

"Is Wilson, the chief electrician dead?" she asked. She was proud that her voice only shook slightly.

"Yes, yes he is. What made you think that?" asked the Doctor, looking at her curiously.

She shrugged, feeling a faint sorrow for the man, remembering that he had been really kind to her when she had first come to work at Henricks, even if she had been an estate girl.  _That troubled girl that made a mess of her life._  She tried to ignore the fact that she was so used to the idea of death and great harm that she could push it off. Wilson had been dead for nearly three years by her very rough estimation...

"Well those dummies seemed to be trying to kill me, and Wilson was down there as well," she told the Doctor, swallowing thickly. She brushed her hair out of her face, and looked at him with wide eyes, "I was supposed to give him the lottery money. And he's always down here after hours before his shift ends."

He hummed absently in response and took out his sonic. The lift doors opened, and he got out, Rose right at his heels.

"Mind your eyes," he said, and Rose only jumped slightly as he caused a small explosion of sparks on the lift's controls.  _At least the Autons wouldn't come up_ , she thought, blinking away the after images.

"What are those things down there?" she asked, feeling that was an appropriate thing to ask. Even if she already knew, and this was all a memory, she thought that any form of the Doctor would appreciate the excuse to lecture.

She followed him as he made for the back exit.

"They're made of plastic. Living plastic creatures. They're being controlled by a relay device in the roof, which would be a great big problem if I didn't have this," he said taking out the bomb, and Rose wondered if his pockets were like the TARDIS in the fact that they were bigger on the outside.

She had asked him once, but an explosion had taken away his time to answer, and she had forgotten to ask him again. It had never crossed her mind that she would never have the chance to ask again. He hustled her out of the back exit of Hendricks, pushed her gently out of the store, a grin firmly in place. It was manic, easing his hard face slightly, trying,  _trying_  to reassure what he thought was a traumatized girl and get her out of the way as he went about his business saving the world.

"So, I'm going to go up there and blow them up, and I might well die in the process, but don't worry about me. No, you go home. Go on. Go and have your lovely beans on toast. Don't tell anyone about this, because if you do, you'll get them killed," he said, and he shut the door behind him.

_Intelligence beyond comprehension, but the man is so absent-minded that it's a miracle he functions._

When the door opened she wasn't as nearly surprised as she had been in her memory. He popped his head out, grinning ear to ear.

"I'm the Doctor, by the way, what's your name?"

"Rose," she said, softly, noting that her voice sounded really faint.

"Nice to meet you, Rose. Now run for your life!" he shouted excitedly, turning around and shutting the door behind him. Rose stared at it for a fraction of second, before she turned and did just that.

She really had no interest in being anywhere near an explosion, even in whatever she was trapped in. The last one she been caught up in had nearly made her deaf for a solid week, and thrown her fairly far when she had been tossed back by the shock wave. Mickey and her father had never let her live it down when she had ended up stuck on the roof of Torchwood HQ, hanging by the back of her jacket and not being able to understand a word they had been screaming at her. Despertaly trying to reach back to swing herself to safety and praying that her jacket wouldn't tare as it supported all her weight. She ran, fast despite her heaving chest, and ignored the honking cab as she crossed the street.

She made it a safe distance and turned just in time to watch her last normal job explode.

Before, she had felt nothing but shock at the whole affair, but now she could appreciate the fact that she had been free from the place she had so willing tied herself to.  _Not to mention, how beautiful all that fire and dust can be in an explosion. When you see them so often, you just get used to seeing the grace of them, the power and danger that it represents._  Staring at it a little longer, she then turned to walk 'home', trying and failing to understand how to break herself free from whatever she was stuck in.

She ran into the TARDIS.

Right against the fake wooden door. Nearly broke her nose in the process because of her deep thoughts.

"Oh," she said, for a lack of better thing to say.

Because the second she touched it, her buzzing mind shifted completely. Instead of buzzing, it  _sang_ warm and so achingly familiar in her mind. Filling her body, adjusting her completely to what was not a projection, or someone manipulating her memories for nefarious proposes. The TARDIS sang loudly and happily in greeting, a joyous symphony of a song that filled every single of her pores with warmth, shooting through every nerve.

_Oh._

Nothing could replicate this. Nothing could ever make her mind relive the TARDIS to such an extent. Not like this. Not as if the empty part of her mind that had been created the second she had gotten stuck in Pete's World was filled so completely just by being near her. Not as if she was finally okay after a near year of sheer agony. Before, when she had talked to the TARDIS for a brief moment in that state after the hospital, Rose had felt her only faintly in her mind, as if she had a weak, remote signal, now, with the TARDIS right next to her she felt her loud and clear.

_I was dead. I died. I died and the TARDIS came for me. I died. Oh by the stars this was real- I just met-_

She was home.

The tears she had felt gathering so many times in her eyes before fell freely. Down her face, thick, warm and making what she knew was not water-proof mascara run down her face, causing streaks of her foundation to trickle down her neck. She reached out tentatively, half of her still not believing what she felt. Her hand, full of plastic, gold, silver and steel rings, was trembling so hard she could hardly lift it. But it was mostly due to the sobs wracking her body.  _This isn't real. This isn't-_ But when she touched the soft, worn wood again, she knew.

Rose Tyler had died, truly, and utterly died, the Valiant child had finally lost her fight against the rejection of another universe.  _And bollocks it had hurt._

But the TARDIS, the Doctor's dear TARDIS, had not been able to take that standing down and had brought her back to the point in which she could save herself from the events that had lead to her death.

"Oh, you daft, crazy girl! You sent me back!" she said, rushing forward to hug the Police box's frame happily. She dropped the Auton's arm without care.

The TARDIS hummed merrily in response, but in a way that sounded... Exhausted. Utterly so. Dead tired really, as if she could barely send a trill her way. Rose's smiled died.

"Why would you do this? Why you could have hurt yourself- You did hurt yourself!"

Another hum, more urgent and the TARDIS projected something to her.

Rose gasped, eyes wide, as her vision was taken from her. She stood in a web- all around her, bright, hundred upon hundred of lines intersected in a complex weave of string and light. It was a beautiful tapestry of something almost like metallic string. Complex and strange, interwoven and precious. It was more than a picture, it surrounded Rose entirely, blinding her with the impossible complexity and intricacy. She breathed in another gasp, blinking rapidly at the complex weave.

_What... What is this? It's so beautiful._

A strand broke, audibly so, like a metallic _ting_  and it made her turn toward it with another blink.

It was a golden one touched with a soft rose. It broke off completely from the web, surrounded by it, so  _close_ to it all, but unconnected. And it stayed perfectly colored and whole, for a moment, the only thing marring it was the two frayed and ripped ends where it had been anchored to the strings around it. This beautiful gold and rose before it slowly decayed before her eyes- the golden turned to putrid rust and the rose paled to a sickly grey. Something in Rose's stomach twisted at the sight. Something in her mind,  _not the TARDIS,_ **howled** as the string died within the web, but not connected to it all. She watched it all with an innate horror and twisting disgust.

A string some sort of colorless one with a crystalline structure, thick and strong and anchored to so many more strings, the one nearest to the golden and rose string, followed suit. It went from pristine clear, like a crystal refracting a dozen colors back at her, to a dull brown, before it turned to a sickly black.

Then, the entire web collapsed in a frightful cacophony of metallic strings snapping in a slow progression.

Rose flinched as it did so, huddling into herself. It all turned to rust and decay. A festering mass around her that Rose could almost smell- could almost  _taste_ it on the back of her tongue. She lifted her hands to her mouth, tears still falling down her face as it all died around her.

The TARDIS's song turned in her head.

It went from the quiet urgency, from  _look and look,_  to a mournful wail. A howl of pain. A requiem of mad grief and aching loss.

Rose sobbed in painful understanding, in painful  _recognition_.

Then the image reset itself to the beauty of before, well and whole. Rose had but a moment of taking in the beauty of the web before the golden and rose string broke again, painfully repeating the process of destroying the complex web around her. It turned to rust and death before it turned again to the beginning of beauty and  _rightness._

It repeated again, the moving image, on a loop. Rose breathed sharply, blinking away tears and forcing herself to compose herself.  _Get a hold of yourself Tyler._ She took another breath, and then another to ease her sobs. She carefully dabbed at her hot, stinging eyes to ease her tears. She blinked, watching the web go on its painful loop.

"That... That was me?" asked Rose, voice thick with emotion and awareness of how  _loud_ the TARDIS's grief had been.

An affirmative hum broke the TARDIS's exhausting wail. The mournful requiem quieting down to a few mournful, quiet notes. All that filled Rose's head was sad, tired notes.

"You... You didn't want that?"

The TARDIS sang sweet, lovely and joyous. Vicious protectiveness. But it turned, quickly, turning urgent once again. Fast and quick, alarmed almost.

"What's wrong? What's the matter-"

In her mind, she remembered the words of the TARDIS: " _fix the mess that got us to this point in the first place..."_ Rose knew, exactly what she had to do.

"I have to live this through, don't I?  _Our_  life up until the point we came to Bad Wolf Bay?"

The TARDIS hummed urgently, a picture of a stoplight in her mind appeared, flashing green, and Rose knew she couldn't linger. She needed to leave. The Doctor would come find her chatting urgently to the TARDIS and would be rightly inquiring how the girl he just saved was talking to his sentient Time-Ship. She wanted to stay-  _ached to stay-_ but Rose was not daft to muck up everything so soon because of her longing to see the man she loved. The TARDIS had given her a mission, and Rose Tyler would fulfill it with the same determination that had let her die and wither in Pete's World with quiet dignity.

She would meet the Doctor soon enough at her mum's flat in the morning.

_Soon. Soon I will see him again._

"Thank you, thank you crazy old thing. Thank you!" she whispered, kissing the wooden box gently.

With another whispered thanks, Rose picked up the arm that would bring the Doctor to her again and ran.

**~BW~DW~BW~DW~BW~**

Rose felt good.

Rose felt nothing but  _good._

She could not really describe it as any other thing. Just a pure good, giddy, happy- and just _good. I feel so... Relieved._ **Alive.**  It had taken but a few moments, from running away from the TARDIS and the Doctor, before her tears had begun to run freely. She had been nearly blinded by the immense emotion as it had swelled up in her, barely been able to see straight as she boarded the familiar bus that would take her to the Powell Estates. It hadn't even begun slowly, just gushed out of her as she took a seat in the very back, looking half-mad, no doubt, with the stupid mannequin arm in her own arms. Down her face, without censure as she clung to a plastic arm on the bus. People stared, whispered at the sight of a young blonde grinning like a bleeding lunatic and crying her eyes out at the back of the bus. But she paid them no mind, ignored both the pity and wariness that filled their gazes as they stared at her.

_Because I'm_ **alive** _and I don't give a bloody fuck what strangers think of me._

She even gave the driver, a young awkward man she vaguely remembers from before, a kiss on the cheek as she got out off the bus. It was a big one, a loud one that she let go with an exaggerated 'mwah' at the corner of his lips. He went red, but Rose was already dashing away before he could respond. The second she saw the Powell Estate, the young woman laughed. Really laughed. Loud and proud, as she hadn't been able to do genuinely in so long. It was the sort of laughter that made her stomach ache. She had chuckled here and there, subdued, pained and with the faint air of constant impatience of her situation, but she hadn't laughed so freely in so  _long_.

It was beautiful to laugh like that, loud and without censure past her tears, to feel so  _light_.

She danced as she went up the stairs of her mum's old flat at the Powell Estate. Literally shimmied and twirled her way up the steps(the lift having been broken down for years, as far as she remembered) and she sang as she danced. Her voice was obnoxiously loud, some wordless thing that was a mimic of the song in the back of her head, and her dance was a little on the mad side. Swirling movements, skipping steps, her movements an unattractive mix of half-arsed ballet and gymnastic tumbles and somewhat difficult to pull off in trainers and holding a plastic arm. But Rose was too beyond excited to care. She could really give a rat's arse at the stares that followed her the entire way back to her mum's flat, or the heads that popped out of apartments at the obnoxious sounds the Tyler girl was making, seemingly gone mad.

_I'm alive, back in my own universe just at the point where my life changed for the better._

She was  _back_ and the Doctor and the TARDIS were so  **close** _._  Already she could feel the TARDIS, permanently in the back of her head in a present, if slightly weak melody. It was so easy to dismiss everything else, to just relish her new situation. To ride the euphoria of not  _dying and being so close to becoming once again the woman with starlight in her wake, the hands of an alien man in her's, the song of an impossible Time-Ship creature that was home and friend and more in her head, the entire stretch of the universe and time at their whims. The glory and vicious rightness of helping everyone they could across all of it._  But she also knew that she had to think clearly, and past her current euphoria.

Rose had learned much, in the short time she had been with the Doctor. She had learned the danger of time travel, the danger of trying to change too much. She had learned the weakness in her own confidence, being what ultimately created Torchwood in her original universe-  _the irony of creating the circumstances of her being stranded in Pete's World was never lost on her, and the only thing that didn't make her want to scream was the fact that the organization would have been created_   _regardless_ \- creating the stupid, horrible paradox with her father... And Rose had learned much with her year with Torchwood, within Pete's World. She understood the standing effect of a World who knew how large and dangerous the Multiverse could be. She understood the psychological effect of what this journey had done to the ones she had loved the most. She knew how vulnerable Earth could be without the Doctor.

Rose knew the consequences of her actions could be just as disastrous as her removal from this Universe's web of time.

Being in the past could cause many things, not all good. Time travel was relatively safe, in terms of how she had experienced it before, but this, this was new territory for her. The TARDIS had risked many things, sending her back from her point of death. She was at the start of it  _all_ at the point in time where she ran off with an alien and set down the path of changing so much in her personal life, and so much in the universe.

_Bad Wolf._

_"I take the words, to lead myself here."_

_Bad Wolf._

_Where am I leading myself now?_

She froze outside of her mum's old flat door, her key in hand, the innate euphoria fading as she pushed it all down.  _Get yourself together, Valient, access, analyze and understand your mission parameters._ Her hand hovered over the doorknob before she lowered it all together, gripping tightly at the set of keys she had found at the bottom of her bag. She stared at the door eyes blinking rapidly, the last remnants of her happy tears flying from her lashes. Her song died on her lips, the note she had been holding dropping to silence. Rose breathed and allowing herself to relish how her chest moved so easily, unencumbered from pain and stiffness. She carefully whipped at her tears with her hot pink sleeve, breathing evenly, slowly, in and out.

_It took everything that I was not to stick with the TARDIS and wait for the Doctor to come back, and snog the man senseless. Now, I have to remember where, when I am, who everyone means to me currently. I can change things, to some extent, even drastically in places. But some things are fixed. And... And I have to understand that the people here, are not the people I left behind._

Physically, she knew by looking down at herself, that she was not the twenty-two-year-old Rose Tyler. She was just as she was before she had met the Doctor. Younger, softer body, and all that came with it.  _Unfit, I could barely keep in mind to do a jog once a week and some stretches before bed._  As much as setting back the clock was every woman's dream, she felt herself missing her twenty-two-year-old body, hard, lean muscle machine that it had been. Running the little amount she with the Doctor had actually winded her, and she knew that being with the Doctor was enormously physically demanding.  _So much running. I lost nearly ten pounds within two months of living with him._  She couldn't even follow her mental directions when it came to defense correctly, she would have to retrain her body to break all of her old habits, all of her body's ticks that had limited her the first time she had tried to learn to defend herself. Her old body had certainly been much stronger than this one, more active to the extreme thanks in combination for her time with the Doctor, and working for Torchwood.

Rose, of course, was no stranger to time travel, but she was working in a world where all that she was, all that made her up had been reversed. She was nineteen-year-old Rose Tyler to the world around her. Estate girl. Shop worker. The girl that would go nowhere, fast, because of stupid choices and circumstance.

Her authority, her wisdom, and experience were all internal.

They were only known to her and the TARDIS.

She also had all of her memories of the past three years or so years, and that in itself brought out a whole new set of problems.

Rose would have to choose what to change, and what to keep constant in the events that had happened from today to the Battle at Canary Wharf. And if traveling with the Doctor had taught her anything, crossing into your own personal timeline was a dangerous endeavor no matter how you did it. She was lucky in the aspect that she was in no danger of the more conventional potential of paradoxes, after all, she could not cross paths with her older body. Even if the place she was in would ultimately end in the same way,(something that Rose knew neither she or the TARDIS would allow) Rose Tyler of twenty-two was surely dead and buried.

Time stretched out in front of her in an infinite moment as she stared at the door of her mother's old apartment.

_So much to do. I have to change everything I feasibly can. For the better. For my own conscience, and for the sake of the universe. The next few years will determine if I die. I don't think the Universe will give me the kindness of a third try at this._

Rose took a deep breath again, allowing her entire body to take in the air in her lungs.

_Well. I don't think freaking out by my mum's flat is gonna solve all of my problems right now. Get moving._

When she opened her mum's old apartment door, solemn and thoughtful of the things she needed to do she did not expect the person on the other side of the door. She should have, really, she should have, but she had been so caught up in the implications that she had not seen this coming. Her throat felt dry, and Rose felt a rush of emotions she could barely keep up with.

" _Mum_."

Jackie Tyler was standing, in the middle of the living room of her flat, dressed in her hot pink joggers and her hair a riot around her, reminiscent of her style in the 80s. Her back was to Rose, but when she turned, she was younger than she had last seen her, her belly no longer round with child. She looked... Horrible, her hair that voluminous because she had no doubt had been pulling at it in desperation and worry. She had red-rimmed eyes, smudged makeup running down her face and stricken expression. In hand, she had both the phone and wadded up tissue that was covered in remains of makeup.

" _Rose_ ," she whispered, and she dropped tissue and phone, launching herself at Rose without another, single word.

The hold of her mother was achingly the same. That had not changed in sensation from nineteen to twenty-two. Rose's arms, readily came around her mother, and without a thought, she pressed her head into her mother's hair. It smelled faintly of chemicals as if she had just bleached her hair recently and her shampoo of mangos and citrus. Rose shuddered a breath.

"What's the fuss?" she asked, softly, hold tight on her mum.

Her mum pulled back then, her mouth pinched in the way she found so familiar and slapped her upside the head.

"You could have been killed! It's all over the news, Hendrik's blown up and me not knowing where you were! Didn't even have the decency to call!" cried her mother, slapping her again before she went back to hugging her.

Rose felt a hot flash of guilt. Part of it was for not calling her mum. She had done so the first time around. Another part of it was over the last words she had told the mother she had left behind in Pete's world. She had been incredibly cruel. But, as she hugged her mother back, she knew that she hadn't lied.

"I'm so sorry mum," she said, honestly, though she could not say, even to herself, which of her mothers she was talking to, "I saw the shop go up and ran, I just- I just didn't think."

Jackie pulled back, eyes wide and lower lip trembling.

"You have to tell me things, Rose. I thought you were  _ **dead**._"

_I was. But I got better._

Rose suppressed a hysterical giggle, ill-timed and thoughtless an urge. Instead, she simply hugged her mother again, pressing against her familiar warmth and closed her eyes to gather herself again. After a minute or two of fussing, her mother proceeds to rant; about trauma, payment, and counseling, how they were entitled to such things no matter where they came from. She said this all as she put the kettle on. Rose only numbly sat down, turned on the telly to distract herself, to give her mum something to focus on other than her. A half-hearted effort at best, and accepted the offered tea the second it was done. When the news station began to go on about Hendrik's her mother started answering the phone left and right, pacing about. Rose watched and didn't know whether to be amused or annoyed at the fact that her mother hadn't really changed from this point until the point where she had left her.

She settled for a mixture of the two, conflicted as she drank her tea.

_I have just until morning to get ready, make a mission plan for tomorrow and the Nestene Consciousness. The Doctor is coming and we have a world to save._

"I know. It's on the telly. It's everywhere. She's lucky to be alive. Honestly, it's aged her. Skin like an old bible. Walking in now you'd think I was her daughter. Oh, and here's himself," said her mother, sounding half pleased and half annoyed as Mickey entered.

He had a copy of the flat in hand, and wide, worried eyes.

Rose herself could only really hold back a curse at the implications of his arrival, and she nearly spilled her wonderful tea via a spit take. It was a younger Mickey, no beard, leaner and lankier than the muscle-bound man she was more used to seeing. This Mickey had only eaten with her this afternoon, danced and kissed in the sunlight by a fountain. He was in the middle of a relationship with her! The Mickey whom she had finally began to have a normal platonic relationship was gone, and the man-child (who she loved to death) before her was not the competent brother-at-arms that had had her back. Her life, which had been fairly simple until her death just had gotten that more complicated than she would have thought.

_What I wouldn't do for a Dalek right now. Somehow that's much more comfortable to face than a man who thinks he's my boyfriend- I mean, well,_ **he** _is but not really._

"I've been phoning your mobile. You could've been dead. It's on the news and everything. I can't believe that your shop went up!" cried Mickey, sitting next to her, grasping her hand tightly in his own.

She tried not to cringe at the fact that his hand felt nothing but wrong to her now. Too warm, not calloused enough, fingertips too thick and grip too tight. Instead, she took comfort in the familiar, in the fact that it was still  _Mickey_ and he was still her friend when it was all said and done.

"Don't make a fuss, I'm fine," she said quietly, watching him keenly as she slipped her hand as gently as she could away from him after she gave it a soft squeeze. He didn't even seem to notice.

She gripped her mug with both hands and sipped her tea to try and get her nerves out of the way.

"Well, what happened?" he demanded.

Rose shifted uneasily on the sofa.  _What does one say to someone you love but are not in love with when they are looking at you like that?_

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"What was it though? What caused it?" he said with urgently, looking at her with more than a little worry in his dark eyes.

Rose sighed.  _Her life was going to be a broken record for a while_  she thought, pushing back her unease.  _Well, Valliant, get your head together._  She straightened her shoulders, shifting to face Mickey with her head tilted up, and she calmly moved at a somewhat respectable distance. She had always been physically affectionate with friends and family alike. But it meant something else to Mickey. Meant more- meant intimacy and comfort that wasn't there in Rose anymore.

"Look, I wasn't inside the shop when it happened. I didn't see a thing," A technicality- she hadn't been inside the shop when the explosion had occurred, nor had she actually seen where the Doctor had placed the bomb, "Just left a moment before, and turned when I heard the noise. I went home before the police could come up- With my track record, I figured it was not good to be in front of the shop that had just exploded."

Mickey and her mum couldn't really call her out a lie that wasn't a lie. Or at least, that logic had worked out last time. Her mother came up, holding out the landline.

"It's Debbie on the end. She knows a man on the Mirror. Five hundred quid for an interview," said her mother, smiling.

Rose almost rolled her eyes.

"Oh that's brilliant! Give it here."

She then proceeds to hang up the phone, her mother made an annoyed noise in the back of her throat.

"Well, you've got to find some way of making money. Your job's kaput and I'm not bailing you out," she snapped.

Rose lips pursed.

"I'll make it work, mum. There's always something."

Her words were an empty reassurance, something to make her mother stop looking so panicked. She hadn't had a proper job in nearly three years, having been consumed with the prospect of just saving the world for saving the world sake. Her work at Torchwood had come at no pay because of her father's instance, after all, he had been one of the most wealthy people on the planet Terra, and they didn't need the money. Rose had never felt uncomfortable with the thought of never having any money to herself what with her time with the Doctor making such thing as currency, so tightly bound from society and culture, irrelevant.  _Volunteer work, Pete had called it._

When her mum answered the phone again and walked off, she knew it was time to start changing her life. She looked at Mickey, so young to her, unknowing how different a person was sitting next to him. It had been just a few hours since he had seen her, but between them stood years of change. She knew she had been terribly unfair to him the first time around, and as a respect to the man she loved as a brother, she needed to end things. She wouldn't dare lead him on again, leaving him with maybes and possibilities that would never come to be. She had let herself be swept up the Doctor, let time slip away and hurt the two people on Earth that loved her the best.

That had caused heartache on so many levels, and she thinks that the people they would have become had never really forgiven her for her ill handling of the situation. Mickey looked at her, to her mug, and furrowed his brow, shaking his head.

"What're you drinking, tea? Nah, Nah, that's no good, that's no good. You're in shock. You need something stronger," he said, sounding amused as he took away her mug, and she frowned.

 _I haven't had a proper tea like that in a_ year _!_

"Mickey," she said, voice growing stiff as she reached for the cup.

He held it out of her reach.

"Now, come on, you deserve a proper drink. We're going down the pub, you and me. My treat. How about it?"

Last time she hadn't gone. But then again, she hadn't needed to break up with him. She looked into his dark eyes. Warm, wide and heavily lashed, looking at her eagerly and the way he always had before. That love that she thinks, in another life, would have been enough.

_Things change now._

"Can we talk outside?" she asked, softly, eyes flickering to her mum.

Mickey, not understanding the implications of her words, readily helped her up, and she nabbed the Auton arm to throw it away. She walked with him, answering in monosyllables as they made their way to the bins outside. Mickey, a little dense, and not sensing her mood, began to talk about his day, reaching for her hand. She dodged out of the way deliberately, making a show of holding the arm with both hands. Mickey no comment, and simply walked as physically close as he could, throwing an arm around her shoulders. She allowed this, because she may be about to break his heart, Mickey was still one of her dearest friends. They reached the bins and she threw the arm as hard as she physically was able, knowing that in a few hours time it would try to kill her, or at least the Doctor and her by proxy.

"Rose what's wrong?"

Rose frowned at his cheerful voice and she turned to look him square in the eyes. He deserved that much.

"Mickey, what if I told you that something in that shop explosion made me think?" she asked.

He only stared at her, grin wide.

"About what?"

"Everything. My life, my... My boyfriend."

Mickey looked at her blankly, and she wanted to both slap him silly for being so thick and hug him for being so thick.

"What do you mean?" he asked finally, his voice soft.

His voice was careful, worried and she felt... Bad. Because it was a shit situation. But she couldn't just leave things as they were.  _Like a bandage._

"I want to cut it off," she said simply, knowing that honesty, in this case, would be the best way to show it.

Mickey's face twisted.

"What?" he asked, alarmed.

She shifted, and not being able to bare looking at him, looked away for a beat. She then turned back, squared her frailer shoulders and lifted her chin.

"I'm breaking up with you," she said simply, honestly.

Brown eyes, beloved, went wide, and she watched Mickey as his jaw worked furiously.

"What?! But I've been good to you! Better than-" he trailed off then, his mouth pinching in an unpleasant way.

Rose took a moment to understand what he meant, and nearly laughed when she remembered who he was mentioning. She hadn't thought about Jimmy Stone in years, the boy that had helped her ruin her own life. She had moved on the first time she had saved the world. Then, with her dying slowly in another universe, being torn apart from the man that she would always love, and the knowledge of having held eternity inside of her(even if she couldn't remember it exactly)... All of it shifted her thought process, and concerns made that boy that had nearly destroyed her fade into nothing but a painful memory.

Jimmy had been a footnote in her life, a regression from the person she had the potential of being.

"You have Mickey, you really have, but I just can't see you that way after what happened today," she said softly. It was an honest enough answer, "I could have died. And what would have been my life? No, A levels, no career prospects. In a relationship that didn't mean as much as it should. I love you, Mickey Smith. But I'm not _in_  love with you. And I think you know that. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Mickey stared, his face twisting. Her heart went out to him, and she wished she could have made this easier. Because she had long suspected that Mickey loved her more than she had ever loved him. The disconnect in their feelings had always made things difficult for them, and in her mind, they had tried to make it work. Made it to the point that they had been content with the state of their relationship, unbalanced as it had been emotionally. The problems with that difference had left them vulnerable the first time around, to her mishandling, to the Doctor's mistake of leaving her loved ones with a year without contact- And they had just fallen apart without ending things properly.

Their friendship had taken Mickey living in Pete's World to recover, and Rose had never forgiven herself for it.

"Fine," he spat, face intense.

He didn't say another word, and he turned sharply towards and left.

Rose wished to offer him something other than that, but she knew that she couldn't tell him anything else.

_What could I tell him?_

**~BW~DW~BW~DW~BW~**

It was fairly odd to wake up in her mum's old flat. Disorienting and a little sad.

Her old bedroom was small, cluttered with the air of who she had been. Remnants of a girl she had out-grown. Small things to hold her interest; her old guitar, an acoustic thing she had bought at a charity shop, untouched and covered in dust from months of disuse, CDs on her dresser, and books of music and astronomy, read to pieces. Rose, with older eyes, saw emptiness, around her, the restlessness of a person in a life that held little to no interest. Her at nineteen had been truly trapped and ill-content with her life.

It was almost, but not quite suffocating inhabiting a space she had outgrown.

But Rose made due, ignoring the remnants of a life she had left long ago. Pushed down discomfort and the bemoaning of all the years she willingly wasted because she had gotten hurt. She went to shower the tension of last night away, and went to prepare herself for the next two adventures she would be thrust into with the Doctor:

That took longer than she had expected, mentally troubled as she went through her old clothing, finding things lost and things abandoned among tops and jeans and skirts. Everything felt wrong. Out of place with her mentality. Shirts that were too delicate, too easy to get torn or dirtied in the course of adventures. Shoes that could twist and break her ankles, skirts that were much too short on her and would flash everyone if she dared try and sprint in them.

But she made due, trying to find a balance between comfort and what would be familiar to the people who knew her as she had been. She dressed in a fitted tank, hot pink with lace, comfortable, black yoga tights she had no idea she had owned, a sturdy jean jacket and a pair of trainers for all the running she knew was coming. She long slightly damaged hair half up and half down, shorter than her memory, curling slightly as it naturally did, away from her face but still loose to be normal to what was typical to her. Rings were on her fingers for appearance's sake and she could not help but put on the hoops she had lost.

Make-up gave her another pause, as she looked in the mirror above her vanity. Made her wonder, looking across tubes and powders across the cluttered space. She settled into another compromise; light foundation, lots of mascara but subtle nude tones around her eyes, with a simple but pretty peach gloss(nearly new tube, as if she had hardly used it) across her lips. Subdued, from her usual look at this age, but still similar enough. The only real deviation was her eye-liner, slightly winged. It wasn't as dramatic as she usually made it, but it gave a certain edge that eased her.

She gathered supplies in a small backpack she could pretend was a purse- grabbing items she thought would be helpful but wouldn't look terribly out of place in the purse of a nineteen-year-old girl who overpacked for her daily life. She threw in her make-up, for reapplication, and for appearance sake. She put in something to eat in the form of granola bars and a packet of crisps, and a reusable water-bottle for hydration. She grabbed a compact torch with the mind to claim it was for dark nights walking home, a pocket mirror, her cellphone, and its charger, and book _(A Christmas Carol, because I am a sentimental idiot)_  to keep her entertained. She threw in deodorant and perfume, a bottle of nail varnish to throw anyone off before she also stashed her passport into the small compact bag she had used for her tampons. Make-up wipes were tossed in as well, antibiotic gel, chapstick, lotion, and a packet of tissues. She debated it for a second before she allowed herself a multi-tool Mickey had left in the flat for some reason or another, as well as a pocket knife that her concerned Mum had gifted her a while pack. A small bundle of bandaids and gauze, with a small bottle of antiseptic and anti-biotic cream. The Doctor had much better stuff, but Rose would rather have some rudimentary first aid then not and would replace them with what was in the infirmary as soon as she could. She grabbed her wallet and added more money than she typically carried around and took any form of identification she could use.

She looked around her room, freshly scrubbed and dusted, bed made to perfection before she left it with the resolve that she would come back and get everything that meant something to her for her move into the TARDIS in a year's time for her Mum.

Her morning was spent ignoring her mother's rants about getting a job or compensation, waiting patiently for the old cat flap to rattle. When it did, she jumped, body tense as she made her way to the door. She crouched down, breathed for a moment before she pushed the flap open. She was greeted by the Doctor's face, blue eyes, so lovely and icy, widening just a fraction as her features registered.

She very nearly grinned.

Instead, she made a show of narrowing her eyes. She stood straight up and opened the door. Looking vaguely bemused, the Doctor raised a single brow. In anybody, he seemed to be very good at that, making expressions that spoke a thousand words. If you were good at listening, that was.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I was having breakfast," she replied, raising a brow of her own, "And I happen to live here."

"Well, what do you do that for?"

Rose rolled her eyes and snagged the lapel of his leather jacket. His entire body tensed, stiff as a board as she dragged him inside, as fast as she was able and slammed the door of the flat.

"What are you doing here Doctor?" she asked.

He shrugged, moving away in a movement that was awful casual, to hide his unease of her manhandling of him. He gave her a measuring look.

"I must have got the wrong signal. You're not plastic, are you?" he tapped her head for good measure and Rose scowled.

"No, bonehead. Bye, then," he said, sounding almost disappointed as he made for the door.

Rose lunged for his hand and pulled him back. He was not getting out of her sight just yet. His hand was just as it should be. Cool, calloused, and threaded between her fingertips perfectly. She blinked and squeezed his hand without meaning. What wasn't right was the way he stiffened again, hand twitching as she squeezed. To her, the discomfort was plain, if hard to spot on this more enigmatic version of the Doctor.

He frowned at her, eyes flickering down to their joined hands and she frowned right back.

"Who is it?" called out her mother.

"It's about last night. He's part of the inquiry. Give us ten minutes," Rose retold her lie easily, dismissing her mother without looking away from the Doctor, or letting go of his hand.

She didn't think she physically could. She wondered if he wasn't pulling away was because her hand was trembling- or if he could hear the way her heartbeat leaping in her chest.

"She deserves compensation," said her mother firmly.

Rose nearly snorted as she tried to tug the Doctor out of her mother's sight, pulling him towards the small living room, away from the hallway that held the bedrooms.

"Oh, we're talking millions," he said with a grin, wiggling his brows.

Rose did snort at that comment.

"I'm in my dressing gown," said her mother suddenly. Rose blinked, turning at her tone.

Her mother, draped across her bedroom door, was lifting her dressing gown carefully across her shoulders where it had slipped.

_No way. Please tell me-_

"Yes, you are," said the Doctor, blissfully unaware to what this was going.

"There's a strange man in my flat," said her mother slyly, actually twirling her hair.

Rose very nearly gagged. Or laughed. She wasn't quite sure what was rising in her throat at the fact that her mother had initially flirted with the Doctor upon their first meeting.  _Oh mum, if you knew what your daughter wanted to do to this man._

"Yes, there is," said the Doctor not getting it.

"Well, anything could happen," said her mother, moving her dressing gown down her shoulder slightly. Rose really wanted to laugh now, though she was faintly insulted that her mother did this without care that she was still there.

The Doctor gave her mother a look and looked like he wished to laugh as well.

"No."

Rose rolled her eyes and dragged him away.  _No indeed!_  She pushed him into the living room, and simply took him in for a moment. The Doctor looked around the flat himself, curious and no doubt looking for the Auton that gave off the signal. She frowned as he wiggled out of her grasp, leaving her hand empty and her heart aching.

"Did you pinpoint the signal of more living plastic here?" she asked, trying to be curious. She knew that the arm was in the general area, but it wasn't in the flat yet, "I don't see why else you'd track me down again. You said to go home and tell no one-"

"They're called Autons, and yes... The question is why they would go for you. You're just a girl who works at a shop- Well, worked, no more shop to work at. Wait for a tick,  _me_! Yes me, it went after you by proxy," he mumbled, and he caught his reflection a mirror, "Ah... Could've been worse. Look at those ears!"

_The ego of him doesn't change. How recently has he regenerated if he is just now seeing his face for the first time?_

He tugged at his ears, before he moved away from the mirror, picking at the random things in her mum's flat. He mumbled a few things here and there, and she found herself sighing. Same old ADHD Doctor.

"Doctor," she said this in an amused, yet frustrated growl.

She hardly noticed the rattle of the cat flap. But she did notice it, back tensing as she realized that the arm was in the flat.  _Where is it?_

"Rose Tyler!" he said suddenly, eyes wide as he looked behind her. She turned, and was utterly surprised, even though she shouldn't have been when the Auton's arm went for her face instead of the Doctor.

She lifted her hand as quickly as she could pushing against the hard plastic as it tried to cover her face. But it was much stronger than she was, and the force of the arm overpowered her quickly. She flew back and braced herself as she was slammed into the glass coffee table. She panted as she tried to get the damn arm off, careful not roll around in the glass for fear of getting embedded within her bare neck.  _Why had it attacked her first?! She clearly wasn't the Doctor... What factor has changed the direction of attack- I really should have been_ **paying** _attention. Bad form, Valliant._  The Doctor was quick to jump on her. Strong, muscled thighs straddling her waist, a groin settling on her stomach. In any other situation, she would have found it comical or pleasant, the Doctor straddling her, but it was very distracting.  _Focus, don't think about it- Don't think about it while something is trying to crush your wrists and face-_

His hand gripped the arm, pulling at it, and she vaguely heard the whirl of his sonic screwdriver. Before he could touch the arm with it, however, the Doctor got the arm off with a happy, triumphant yell with sheer brute force. For a beat, as her chest heaved, she took a moment to admired how looked on top of her, before the arm flew back and went to strangle him. Huffing a restrained laugh, as he tried to take the arm off himself, sonic screwdriver falling out of his hands. She reached for the sonic on the floor, his stretching her hand as much as she could as the Doctor let out a strangled squawk as he was pushed back into the sofa. She twirled it in her fingertips, searching for the button and watched as he aimed at her to stab while still trying to get the thing off.

She stabbed the arm with a violent huff, sonic buzzing and the arm fell limp.

"Well. You've stopped it... There, its Armless, " he said, grinning at her.

Rose laughed weakly and out of breath, picking up the arm. She whacked him in the shoulder, hard.  _The joke had been lame the first time around._

"Ow!"

The Doctor gave her an annoyed look and then jumped to his feet, not sparing a glance towards her. She got up, grabbing the arm that the daft man had forgotten, as well as her backpack and ran after him.  _Just like old times_ , she thought as she caught his hand, pulling him back in the middle of the stairway, he went stiff again.  _Constantly trying to catch up to you as you bound ahead. Well, I am better at catching now!_

"You can't go swanning off," she said, the frustration of watching him walk away making her voice a growl.

He continued down the stairs, ignoring her even as she clung at his hand, dragging her downwards.  _How can holding your hand feel so right but wrong at the same time? How can I stand next to him yet be so far away?_ She threw the arm at him and was frustrated when he caught it without looking back at her.

"Yes, I can. Here I am. This is me, swanning off. See you."

"If it went after me once because of you, what makes you think it won't try again?" she snapped.

They rushed out of the doors, and she saw the TARDIS in the distance, sitting on the small lawn by the Estate. The song, now a soothing constant in her head since she had touched the TARDIS the night before, dipped and rose in a semblance of a weak wave. Rose made no move to answer the sentient time-machine back but felt a bit lighter at the action on the part of the TARDIS.

"The further you get away from me Rose Tyler the better off you are," said the Doctor, and he snatched his hand away from her's, "I came near you and that's why you were attacked. Stay away, mind your nose and you won't be attacked by anything plastic again."

She stared at him as he stormed away from her, heart pounding fiercely. She was angry, furious and hurt at his disinterest.

_I'm nothing but a stranger caught in the midst of his usual madness, and he was treating her as such. It hurt. Please. Please don't. I know you have no idea who I am. I know you're just thinking I am just one more person dragged into your life by accident... But. I love you. I need you. I thought I would never see you again. I_ **died** _to see you._

After a beat, her mental process hammered into her by her time with Torchwood, made her take a step back from her feelings. Her feelings did not matter at the moment. This was just meant to be a brief encounter between them. Not for her to jump onto the TARDIS as he did whatever he needed to be done until Plastic-Mickey came swinging by.  _Follow the timeline, Tyler._

She breathed, but made sure to keep her tone the same level of frustration as she called out to his retreating back; "I just want to understand all of this. And you, I want to understand you. Can't you at least give me that?"

He turned sharply. He stared at her for an incredible amount of time, and then he gently put his calloused hand back in her's. It was a curiously gentle movement as if he was reaching for a scared animal. In a sense, she had been the first time around if she was honest, and now, with her memories and emotions pressing so hard against her heart, perhaps she was this time around as well.

"Do you know like we were saying about the Earth revolving? It's like when you were a kid. The first time they tell you the world's turning and you just can't quite believe it because everything looks like it's standing still. I can feel it. The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, and the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour, and I can feel it. We're falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go... That's who I am. Now, forget me, Rose Tyler. Go home," he said until he let go of her hand abruptly.

The wind blew, her hair moving in it, as the Doctor looked at her. His face was hard, carved from ice and pain and mourning.  _You've just regenerated. You've just survived the Time-War and here's this girl demanding something from you._  He thought a stranger was looking back at him, just a girl... Just a girl that worked in the shop he had blown up. Despite herself, emotion swelled within her again. Hurt, pain and so much bloody longing it was ridiculous. She opened her mouth, to tell him everything that would happen to them, how they would travel across the stars and time, and how she had died to be with him again.  _I love you._  She wanted to tell him so badly. Wanted to show him all she had gone through for his sake, for the sake of being with him again. Anything so he could hold her hand again. To love her as she suspected he had.

But Rose snapped her mouth shut.

That wasn't fair to the Doctor in front of her. He was still her Doctor, the man she loved, she could see him clearly in the man before her. But she wasn't anything to him in return. She couldn't make him be the man she remembered. He would have to grow into him if that was what the

He turned his back to her again and walked away towards the TARDIS.

But he had his own life to live, away from what she had experienced with him before. She would use her knowledge of the future to save herself, but not to make him feel anything for her. The very thought of doing that turned her stomach. Made her furious and disgusted with herself. She couldn't destroy his choices. She  _wouldn't._ He was a man of his own, brilliant, beautiful mind, untouched by what they would live with each other.

_I can't just tell you what I am to you. That I am in love with you. Time can be rewritten._

She hugged herself, painfully gripping her sides as he disappeared into the TARDIS. Time travel was a tricky business, and the strange mental travel that the TARDIS had done to her was no exception. Timelines must be preserved, and not even a Time Lord should have so much insight into his own future, not like the way she so desperately wanted to show him, to ** _force_  **him to know. She had to watch her life with the Doctor pass, and she wouldn't speak a word to the Doctor of what the TARDIS had done. Of what they had meant to each other in her memories.

She promised herself, and him right then and there as the TARDIS disappeared in that familiar noise, that the truth of her presence in the past would not be revealed until after the Battle of Canary Wharf.

She pushed away from the pain that thought brought, at the possibility that he would simply not love her as she was now, the jaded Agent of Torchwood instead of the innocent girl she had been at nineteen... Maybe not innocent. But definitely lighter than she was now. Because despite what it meant to  _her_ to the Universe at large, the relationship between her and the Doctor did not matter in the slightest. She was here to survive. She was here to maintain and adjust the time-line for the better for the Universe, not just for herself.

_It was what must be done._

**~BW~DW~BW~DW~BW~**

"Rose! Babe, sugar, babe, sugar," called out Mickey's voice.

She looked up from the floor, staring at the shiny material of Mickey's skin. It was a few hours after the Doctor's departure, and as she had expected, the living plastic had taken it upon themselves to take a familiar face and try and gather information from her. Carefully, she made her way to the plastic-Mickey, wary, as he grinned at her. Everything about the double was a perfect replica of her ex-boyfriend, but she supposed she had been very out of it when it had approached her the first time. The sheen of his skin, the facial twitches that she suspected was a faulty telepathic connection of its head as it called her various sweet monikers.

_God, how dense I was._

She watched the plastic-Mickey, eyes careful and trying to keep a certain distance. She made a note to try to remember all the finer details of her misadventures with the Doctor in as much detail as possible, write it down somewhere the Doctor couldn't reach so things like this wouldn't catch her off guard.

"Hello Mickey," she said, as cheerfully as she could.

It grinned at her, twitching head and all.

"Hungry? Hungry?" he sang, reaching for her hand.

_To change or not to change. I can save myself some time and take his head now. But what are the chances that I will one, find the Doctor, and two, prevent the head from melting as it had before? And what could that mean for Mickey? No. The best thing at the moment is to live this out._

She stepped around his hand.

"How 'bout we get some pizza, Micks, from that place you like? I've had a long day, and I really need to talk to someone about it."

They went to the same restaurant as before, an Italian place that made the best pizza on this side of the Estate area. It was a frequent haunt for her ex-boyfriend as she could vaguely remember many dinners dates, confirming the suspicion of a telepathic connection between the soldier sent out by the Consciousness and her childhood friend. She nearly laughed as she caught a glimpse of the Doctor sneaking into the kitchens, out of the corner of her eyes, a detail she had failed to notice before.  _Probably for the champagne._

"So Babe, sugar, sweetheart, how did you meet this Doctor?" asked the not-Mickey, his head glitching again.

Rose sat across the large table from him, a deliberate move she had made, and could only shrug. Carefully, she constantly adjusted herself to be facing him, no matter how much he moved around in the chair, his dark brown eyes, shining and intent, always on her. She left a hand on the tabletop near the silverware their server had left for them as they had ordered, ready to grab the steak knife at a moments notice.

_Never mind the fact that I hadn't mentioned the Doctor to anyone. The Nestene Consciousness should really gather its data more carefully..._

"Oh, you know, how you always met interesting people," she said, watching with some vague amusement as the thing glitched again and went for her hand.

She had enough sense this time around to keep it away from touching her, and moved her hand carefully, along with the silverware.

"Champagne?" asked the Doctor, and it took all of her will power not to look away from plastic Mickey.

"We didn't order any champagne. Where's the Doctor?" snapped plastic Mickey, reaching for her again.

She kept a pleasant, steady expression. She gripped the steak knife in her hand, twirling it with a faux absent-mindedness.

"I'm not going on about him."

"Madam, your Champagne?"

"It's not ours," she replied.

She prepared for what was next, clenching her fist around the knife.

"Doesn't anybody want this champagne?" said the Doctor and he sounded joyfully frustrated.

"Look, we didn't order it," began plastic Mickey, a frown on his face until he looked up.

Rose did so as well and grinned at the sight of the Doctor.

"Ah. Gotcha," said plastic Mickey, his grin all rubber.

The Doctor started shaking the bottle vigorously, a smile on his face as well.

"Don't mind me. I'm just toasting the happy couple. On the house!" he cried with triumph.

The Doctor released the cage around the cork and it flew into plastic Mickey's forehead. After a few moments, he spat it out, looking as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Anyway," started plastic Mickey, moving to stand up.

Rose already was moving and before she could think, she threw the knife, and her right leg shot out a fraction of a second later and slammed into the round table in front of her. The thing shot upwards and into plastic Mickey's chin, the knife in his left shoulder, pushing him to the ground, and she got up in the same movement. She grabbed the Doctor's hand as it got up, and pulled him out of the way the second the plastic Mickey started swinging his plastic paddle hands. The Doctor and her split up, going in opposite directions as people started to scream.

Plastic Mickey glitched again, and she ran to the fire alarm and got all of the people out, just as the Doctor snapped off plastic Mickey's head.

"Nice kick. A steak knife though?" said the Doctor, looking down at the head in interest.

"Thanks. I didn't have any other choice, my ex-boyfriend shows up, acts like he still is my boyfriend and is all shiny and plastic-like, like those store dummies and... Well, it makes a girl a little wary of what he wants," she muttered, wincing, her inner thigh aching.

_I shouldn't have kicked that high, my body is not used to move like that yet. Bloody hell I used to be able to kick up to my own ears!_

"Don't think this will stop me," said plastic Mickey's head, still smiling in the Doctor's hands. It looked more as if he was baring his teeth at them.

His body began to flail, and Rose quickly ran to the Doctor, tugging his arm.

"I think it would be best to swan off... Now," she said staring as the plastic body made his way to them.

"Oh, I like the way you think Rose Tyler!" said the Doctor, and he placed his hand in her's, dragging her outside of the restaurant and sealing the metal door with his sonic.

He then proceeded to drag her off, running at full speed to the TARDIS. Rose tried her best to keep up, slightly unfit as she was, and with no 'superior' biology to help her along. The TARDIS hummed happily at their approach, just as soft and tired as the night before, and Rose had to restrain herself from greeting the old girl out loud. She watched as the metal door dented under plastic Mickey, and looked back as the Doctor rushed past the doors of the TARDIS without looking back.  _The man and his dramatics! Oh, an innocent young woman, come into a shed as we run for our lives._  She held back and reminded herself to play the confused human.

"Shouldn't we keep running?" she asked, approaching the TARDIS door carefully. In greeting, she placed a hand on the doors, relaxing as the tired hum became louder.

"Nah! You should come in here!" called out the Doctor's voice.

She sighed, rushing into the TARDIS. She felt a shot of warmth as she shut the door behind her, and she let out the breath she hadn't realized she had been holding.

_I'm home._

The familiar coral design of the control room warmed her heart, the dim, muted lighting familiar and relaxing.  _It was good to be home,_  she thought, and with that thought, the TARDIS's song grew as if, in agreement. She stepped carefully inside, not bothering to go back outside to examine the outside, and closed the doors behind her. The Doctor was already connecting Mickey's plastic head to the console. But she saw, despite his busy hands, he was eying her out of the corner to his eye.

"It's bigger on the inside," she stated, simply.

"Correct. Now don't worry your yellow head, The assembled hoards of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door, and believe me, they've tried. Now, shut up a minute," he said and Rose rolled her eyes at the fact that she hadn't really said anything.

She watched with mild amusement as he played around with the plastic Mickey head.

"You see, the arm was too simple, but the head's perfect. I can use it to trace the signal back to the original source. Right. Where do you want to start?" he said, plugging in a protesting and biting head.

She sighed and said her next words with care.

"It's bigger on the inside, it's alien as living plastic, and since you seem to own it I assuming that you're an alien as well?"

The Doctor raised a brow, and he paused in his work to fully look at her. Blue eyes looked at her, calculative and unwavering.

"Ten out of ten for observation. It's called the TARDIS. T-A-R-D-I-S. That's Time And Relative Dimension In Space. Is that alright, me being an alien and all?" he asked.

"Yeah. I mean. Living plastic. Another alien shouldn't be that big of a deal in comparison. This plastic Mickey is just a decoy so the Auton things could find you, right?"

"Right!" he said, sounding pleased.

"Well, he's melting."

The Doctor looked at her strangely before he looked back at the melting Mickey head. He looked back at her, smiling pleasantly before he did a double-take. When he scrambled to keep the head from melting, she let out a strangled laugh as he panicked.  _I really am back, and my silly, sometimes daft Doctor is in front of me._  She watched him, walking slowly towards the control counsel. She touched it gently, humming to the TARDIS pleasantry as she hummed back.

"Oh, she likes you. That's new," he muttered as he stuck a needle in the nearly goop head of plastic Mickey.

She hummed back and peeked curiously at the head.

"Following the signal. It's fading. Wait a minute, I've got it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no! Almost there. Almost there. Here we go!"

The TARDIS landed with a slight and familiar jolt, and Rose caught herself against the console just in time to keep from falling over. The Doctor rushed outside and she followed carefully, hands brushing against the TARDIS's doors as she followed her piolet.

_I really do a lot of running with the Doctor... Except for that one time they had hopped. Hopping for their lives had been interesting..._

"I lost the signal, I got so close," he muttered in frustration, running his hand over his scalp, scratching at his short hair.

"We've moved. Does it fly? Or does it disappear and reappear?" she asked, trying her best to look curious as she gave a sly glance to the London Eye.

_It was_ **always** _the monuments. Honestly, I get more surprised when its a mundane sort of warehouse._

"The latter... You wouldn't understand," he said, looking around.

_Rude. And not ginger._

"So, you're an alien. Do a lot of planets have a North if you have that accent then?" she asked amused.

He looked back at her, brow quirking.

"What, do think I can't have a Northern man teach me your language?"

"Dunno. I expect something posh from someone with the possibility of interstellar travel. I also don't expect your space-ship to be a box. And why does it say police?" she asked, glancing at it. She had never gotten around to asking.

"I kind of like it," he said thoughtfully, patting the side of the TARDIS with affection, "The chameleon circuit got stuck to this, and well, I don't see the point of fixing it.."

"It is a very pretty blue," she paused, taking a shaky breath, "Is Mickey dead? ... You know the head of the kid you tore off?"

She knew that he was fine, but it was something someone would ask. She had before after all. The Doctor stared at her, brows rising in surprise.

"Oh. Didn't think of that..."

Rose frowned.

"Too busy saving the world?"

"And every stupid ape on the surface of this planet!" he finished, looking frustrated.

She rolled her eyes. She had forgotten the pre-regeneration Doctor took a stab at species when he was frustrated.

"So what does the living plastic want with Earth? Take over? Resources? Slave labor?" she asked, hoping to hurry him along. She was faintly afraid for Mickey, she knew that one little word could change someone's actions greatly. It was slim, but it was possible for him to die.

_Time is constantly changing._

"Completely... You've got such a good planet. Lots of smoke and oil, plenty of toxins and dioxins in the air, perfect. Just what the Nestene Consciousness needs. Its food stock was destroyed in the War, all its protein plants rotted, so Earth, dinner!" he said cheerfully.

Rose twitched at the mention of the Time War.

"How are we going to stop it?"

The Doctor blinked.

"Anti-plastic," he said simply, taking out the small vial of blue liquid and grinning.

"We aren't going to just kill it, are we? It's a refugee for a war- And don't we have to find it first?" she asked, looking directly at the London Eye.

She couldn't help it really.

"Of course we're going to  _talk_  to it- But you make a point... But how can they hide something that big in a city this size? The Consciousness is controlling every single piece of plastic, so it needs a transmitter to boost the signal," he said, and he tugged at his ear.

She sighed.

"Would it be like a big radial disc?" she said. Her gaze remained stuck on the Eye on the other bank, opposite of the one he had landed the TARDIS on.

"Yes! Maybe invisible..."

He stopped mid-step when he caught her look, and she jerked her head to the Eye. Just like before he glanced over the Eye, and looked back to her without registering.

"What? What is it? What?" he asked, obviously confused.

Rose laughed, and she jerked her head again. He looked back, and then at her, and then back.

"Oh! Fantastic!" he cried, reaching over for her hand and pulling her along towards the left bank.

He reached for her, actually reached for her and grabbed her hand in a move that looked completely natural, bounding forward with the giddiness of a schoolboy. It wasn't until they were under the London Eye that he spoke again, searching carefully for the entrance.

"Think of it, plastic all over the world, every artificial thing waiting to come alive. The shop window dummies, the phones, the wires, the cables..."

"The breast implants."

"Still, we've found the transmitter. The Consciousness must be somewhere underneath."

Rose looked over the parapet and sees the large manhole entrance at the bottom of the steps that they had entered last time. She rolled her eyes at him. Despite being the cleverest man in the universe he could be so thick at times.

"What about down here?" she asked dryly, pointing. He looked up from his searching and grinned.

"Looks good to me."

He opened the manhole with the sonic, and the hellish red light poured over their skin as they started going down the rungs. She shivered faintly as the Doctor helped her for the last few, grabbing at her waist impatiently. His hands were large, almost touching together despite the generosity of her hips as he took her off of the ladder. He set her down gently, grinning ear to ear in that way of his. For the moment, she debated snogging him but concluded in less than a second that could hurt her chances from being invited to go with him. The man was jumpier than she remembers, or perhaps she had been too dazed to notice. Any contact she initiated seem to cause him to tense, and a kiss could cause him to bolt.

To distract herself, she pushed away from him and glanced around for Mickey. She was pleased to find him cowering in the corner.

_Alive. Didn't botch that much up, Micks._

"The Nestene Consciousness. That's it, inside the vat. A living plastic creature." said the Doctor softly. She said nothing as he walked over to address it, and she knew that he was giving it a chance.

Same old Doctor.

"I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract according to convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation," he said, importantly.

The Nestene Consciousness flexed upward. Rose stared. She felt the thing give off a faint air of greeting...

" _It is I..._ " rasped the Nestene Consciousness, in a loud, projecting voice.

_How Ood was that... That's certainly new... Improved telepathic ability? A side-effect of the time-travel, or is because of my constant exposure of the TARDIS?_

"Thank you. If I might have permission to approach?" asked the Doctor.

Rose snapped out of her staring, shaking her head and made her way over to Mickey. He jumped, snatching her leg in arms, grip tight, almost bruisingly so in his panic.

"That thing down there, the liquid. Rose, it can talk!" he cried, his grip growing tighter with every word.

_Mickey had a stronger potential for telepathy than her the first time around if he could hear that thing from the start. I feel vaguely offended._

"Am I addressing the Consciousness? Thank you. If I might observe, you infiltrated this civilization by means of warp shunt technology. So, may I suggest, with the greatest respect, that you shunt off?"

A sort of face formed in the vat of plastic, and she felt more than heard the faint surge of outrage enter the air, a roar in a voice, a snarl in their heads.

" _My constitutional rights as a refugee..._ " it began.

"Oh, don't give me that. It's an invasion, plain and simple. Don't talk about constitutional rights. I am talking!"

The suddenly roaring Nestene silenced when the Doctor raised his voice.

"This planet is just starting. These stupid little people have only just learnt how to walk, but they're capable of so much more. I'm asking you on their behalf. Please, just go."

"Doctor!" hissed Rose, as she watched two shop dummies grab him and snatch the anti-plastic from his pocket.

" _Liar_!  _You move against us and attack us with your vast weaponry!_ " it screamed, voice low and thundering.

"That was just insurance. I wasn't going to use it. I was not attacking you. I'm here to help. I'm not your enemy. I swear, I'm not. What do you mean?" he said, alarmed.

A door slide back behind her and Mickey and the TARDIS hummed in a somewhat frustrated greeting.

" _Liar! Look at your ship, your weapon! My world burned! It burned in the Time War made by your hands and those of the Daleks, TIME-LORD. Nothing was done for me, for my people- Why should I listen to you with your big words and weapons?_ "

"No. Oh, no. Honestly, no. Yes, that's my ship. That's not true. I should know, I was there. I fought in the war. It wasn't my fault. I couldn't save your world! I couldn't save any of them!" cried the Doctor lifting his hand in surrender.

" _Liar! Murder! Let this world become mine!_ "

"Doctor?" she called, desperately pushing away Mickey's dragging hands pulling on her clothes.

"It's the TARDIS! The Nestene's identified its superior technology. It's terrified. It's going to the final phase. It's starting the invasion! Get out, Rose! Just leg it now!" said the Doctor.

She didn't bother calling her mum this time around, she knew that it would be useless. Instead, she looked around and then reached for the ax.

"It's the end of the world..." she said softly, it was her first. Or, at least it was the first for this body to experience the end of the world. It brought an oddly comforting sensation.

"It's the activation signal. It's transmitting!" cried the Doctor in frustration.

"We're going to die." moaned Mickey, pounding at the TARDIS door, as he had tried to get out that way.

"Run Rose! Just leg it!"

"Leave him! We're going to die!" cried Mickey.

" _TIME LORD!_ "

"We're not. Because I sure as hell not going to die here," she said firmly, and she slammed the ax into the chain. It came loose with the first swing, since she knew the right amount of force to use, and she gripped it tightly in her hand, throwing the ax to the side as she gave a running leap.

She swung straight into the dummies, just as she had last time, though this time she kicked both on the first swing by, and let go of the chain as the Doctor caught her neatly around the waist. Her move had knocked the anti-plastic into the Consciousness, and she watched with some regret. It had only been terrified. Lost and displaced in the wake of the Time-War.

But between it and the Earth, she knew that it was the Earth that was innocent in the whole scheme.

It began to pulsate blue, and she bit her lip guilty as it screamed in agony.

"Rose! We're in trouble now!" said The Doctor, well, screamed it over the roar of everything, and he rushed towards the TARDIS, her in tow.

He pushed aside Mickey and opened the TARDIS doors. Mickey immediately clutched to her as she rushed him inside.

 _How things would change,_  she thought with a wry smile.

**~BW~DW~BW~DW~BW~**

The Doctor watched with great amusement as the boy, whatshisname, Rickey, ran out of the TARDIS, and went to hid behind some pallets.

Cowering like the child he really was, he peeked from behind it and gestured wildly at Rose Tyler as she walked some distance away from the Doctor, toward the boy. Her brows had been furrowed before she had moved past the Doctor, and the strange yellow and pink human stopped next to the boy, grabbing his shoulder and sighing, as she forced the boy to stand. She turned to him, as the other human to hide behind her, clutching at her shoulders. It was as if he was half trying to use her as a human shield, and bring her closer to him at the same time.

 _Oi, real prince, you got Rose Tyler. A girl like you could do so much_ **better** _._ The thought was slightly strange to him, beyond him understanding that Rose Tyler was a bit fantastic with how calm and inquisitive she was, who she chose as a mate was not really important. But she deserved more than a cowering boy who used her as a shield.

"Fat lot of good you did," she said seemingly put out at the boy, but there was a look in her large eyes that was odd, a certain kind of ease and calm that was almost unnatural in a young human who had just gotten a taste of the Universe at large, "You shouldn't have panicked Micks. We're okay. We lived."

That seemed to be the case a lot with this human. The calmness, the readiness to move and get things done, despite her obvious inexperience with aliens.

"Nestene Consciousness? Easy," he said, leaning against the TARDIS doors.

She looked up and gave a smile, large, full and  _Oh by Rasillion did my hearts just skip a beat?_ Her tongue poked out the side of her teeth in a way, that was... Well,  _endearing_. Fetching. Sort of se- She was a pretty thing, for an ape, young, almost devastating so. He had no idea why a girl, what he guessed was nineteen or eighteen, was doing shut away at a shop for a living, being so pretty and obviously intelligent. And so ready to move, so ready to save the world!

"You were about as helpful as he was...You'd be dead without me, admit it."

_And apparently not taking any shit either._

Her hazel-green eyes sparkled in the sunlight, and for a second, he tilted his head at the odd golden flecks within her irises. Brilliant, almost metallic. Beautiful, odd eyes. He bets she had been teased mercilessly for such odd eyes. He smiled, easily, and it felt  _real_ on his face, not just something he put out of habit. It was hard not to smile when she smiled at him, even harder to ignore that little hint of her pink tongue.

"Yes, I would. Thank you. Right then, I'll be off, unless, er, I don't know, you could come with me. This box isn't just a London hopper, you know. It goes anywhere in the universe free of charge," he found himself saying, and he found his hearts pounding in anticipation.

He hadn't honestly expected to ask for someone to come along with him, not this soon. He needed time alone, to get his massive head together, but... He didn't know if it was her wit, her startlingly sharp and clever insightful mind, or if it was the way she took action and was cool as a cucumber when it came to the situations he usually found himself in... Or maybe even the way the time-lines curved and bent around her as if to embrace her. Brilliant as the sun, burning and brilliant, the weakened time web flowed around her in a golden, beautiful thing that hurt his time-sense. He snapped it shut without ceremony, head throbbing, hearts pounding.

There was just something about the odd, yellow and pink human named Rose Tyler that compelled him to ask.

"Don't. He's an alien. He's a thing," said the other human, clutching at her legs as he kneeled in front of her.

He felt himself frown.

_What a rude ape!_

"He's not invited. What do you think? You could stay here, fill your life with work and food and sleep, or you could go anywhere," he said, grinning best he could.

He hoped it was somewhat encouraging. Wasn't the best at that in this body, raw and tough as it was. Goofy looking as it was. But he tried.

Rose pressed her lips together, seemingly trying to think it over.

"It's always this dangerous, isn't it? You do things like save worlds every day," she said softly, and there was some of that clever insight she possessed.

He couldn't lie.

"Yeah."

She frowned, and she looked to Mickey, who looked at her with imploring eyes, tugging at the thin and clingy material of her pants.

"Don't. I know you cut things off with me but he's not the answer to whatever you couldn't find in me," said the boy, and he sounded pained. Voice cracking and rising in agitation, "You think being abducted by an alien can change your life, Rose? Turn your lack of A-levels and all the pain you caused your mum around? Running from your problems isn't what's gonna make your life mean something!"

Rose looked at him startled as if she hadn't expected that.

He frowned himself,  _domestics_... He knew that the girl wouldn't come. He could tell by the way she half reached out for the other human. Her expression was imploring, and she looked almost heartbroken.

"Never mind, then," he called out, and he failed to see her stricken face as he turned and walked into the TARDIS.

_No right to be upset. She's a young girl. Your an old man that's spent the entire time insulting her, her species, and claimed high knowledge only to have her swoop in and save you instead. Some superior being you are._

He rushed to the controls, ignoring the feeling of irritation and disappointment as he set the coordinates at random. The TARDIS entered the vortex but went no further than that. He swore violently as he jolted forward, the TARDIS freezing in the void with no intentions of moving. He slammed into the control console with the movement, and he hissed in pain.

"What?! What do you think you're doing?" he asked sharply, reaching over to smack the control counsel with a hammer.

The TARDIS's song gave a sharp, angry turn in his head. As it was the only thing in his mind, it completely filled it, echoing on empty space that used to be occupied.

He swore again.

_She was never this stubborn!_

"Stop it! Get going!" he said.

But the TARDIS remained stubbornly still.

He stared, and threw himself back into the jump seat, crossing his arms. Golden flecked eyes flashed into his mind, and he felt a faint longing to not be alone... And wondered if he told...

"Go back! I have to tell her about the time travel!" he cried suddenly, launching himself to the panel.

He had barely finished his sentence and the TARDIS landed back on Earth, seconds after he had left if not milliseconds.

He groaned from the floor, where he had been thrown. He stood up and smacked the console again with the hammer.

"You really took a liking to her!" he cried. But he was smiling, too hard, to wide to be truly upset.

He chucked the hammer aside and then he scrambled to the doors. He tried to ignore the TARDIS's smug hum in return. He opened the doors, and her golden flecked hazel met his icy blue.

"By the way, did I mention that it also travels in time?" he asked, grinning as she beamed at him.

She turned to the boy.

"Find someone Mickey. You're gold, I love you, but you aren't what I need or want. Thanks, for being all you could be," she whispered, and she kissed him square on the cheek.

Then she turned, beaming wider, bolting towards the TARDIS.

"ROSE!"

She was still beaming, a great big smile that flashed in the sun. She didn't look back. Not even flinch at the scream of her friend. When she reached the Doctor, she clasped his hand in her tiny one, and somehow, the Doctor felt, for the first time in a long time, that he wasn't alone.

**Author's Note:**

> AN: I do not own Doctor Who in any sense. It's universe, characters all belong to its creator, it's publishing and broadcasting companies.
> 
> This is me, playing in its sandbox, making misshapen sandcastles.
> 
> This is an older story I have initially posted on Fanfiction. This, however, is an edited version of the one there. I'm going through the existing chapters and editing them, changing dialogue, adding descriptions, changing the wording, more or less trying to bring the earlier chapters more up to par with my current writing style, as well as getting my head space more Doctor Who inclined, as I've drifted from the fandom a bit. I will finish the edits before I post the next chapter on either site, but if anyone is interested in seeing more of this story in a more raw form, feel free to check it out here:
> 
> https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9877656/1/Blooming-Again


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